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BEFORE  AND  AFTER    THE   TREATY  OF 

WASHINGTON :     THE   AMERICAN 

CIVIL    WAR  AND    THE   WAR 

IN    THE    TRANSVAAL 


A:     A  i  J 


•  Kl.l\  KKKI'     HKKORE    T  U  K 


NEW 


iiiSTORlCAL      SOCIETY 


L9,    1901 


CRARLES    FR/vNCIS    ADAMS,    LL.D, 

Presuit  nt  i>f  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 


NEW    YORK: 

PRINTED    FOR   THE   SOCIKTV 
190-'. 


BEFORE  AND  AFTER    THE   TREATY  OF 

WASHINGTON :    THE   AMERICAN 

CIVIL    WAR  AND    TffE   WAR 

IN    THE    TRANSVAAL'- 


AN  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 

NEW    YORK    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY 

ON    ITS 

NINETY-SEVENTH   ANNIVERSARY, 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  19,  1901, 


BY 


CHARLES    FRANCIS   ADAMS,    LL.D. 

President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 


NEW    YORK: 

PRINTED    FOR   THE   SOCIETY 
1902. 


U.  T     '  / 


OFFICERS   OF   THE   SOCIETY,    1901 


PRESIDENT, 

THE  VERY  REV.  EUGENE  A.  HOFFMAN, 

D.D.    (OXON.),    LL.D. ,    D.  C.  L. 
FIRST   VICE-PRESIDENT, 

J.     P1ERPONT     MORGAN. 

SECOND    VICE-PRESIDENT, 

JOHN     S.     KENNEDY. 

FOREIGN    CORRESPONDING    SECRETARY, 

NICHOLAS     FISH. 

DOMESTIC    CORRESPONDING    SECRETARY, 

FREDERIC     WENDELL     JACKSON. 

RECORDING    SECRETARY, 

SYDNEY      H.     CARNEY,     JR.,     M.D. 

TREASURER, 

CHARLES     A.    SHERMAN. 

LIBRARIAN, 

ROBERT     H.     KELBY. 


9621 52 


EXECUTIVE   COMMITTEE. 


FIRST    CLASS — FOR    ONE    YEAR,    ENDING     1902. 

F.    ROBERT   SCHELL,  DANIEL   PARISH,  JR., 

FREDERIC    WENDELL   JACKSON. 

SECOND    CLASS FOR    TWO    YEARS,    ENDING    1903. 

NICHOLAS    FISH,  ISAAC    J.    GREENWOOD, 

CHARLES   FREDERICK    HOFFMAN,    JR.  ' 

THIRD    CLASS — FOR   THREE    YEARS,   ENDING    1904. 

JOHN    S.   KENNEDY,  GEORGE   W.  VANDERBILT, 

CHARLES   ISHAM. 

FOURTH    CLASS FOR    FOUR    YEARS,    ENDING    1905. 

J.    PIERPONT    MORGAN,  JOHN   J.    TUCKER. 

JOHN    J.    TUCKER,   Chairman, 
DANIEL    PARISH,  JR.,   Secretary. 

[The  President,  Recording  Secretary,  Treasurer,  and  Librarian 
are  members,  ex-officio,  of  the  Executive  Committee.] 


AT  a  meeting  of  the  NEW  YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY, 
held  in  its  Hall  on  Tuesday  evening,  November  iQth, 
1901,  to  celebrate  the  Ninety-seventh  Anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  the  Society,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  LL.D., 
President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  de 
livered  the  address,  entitled  :  "  Before  and  After  the  Treaty 
of  Washington:  The  American  Civil  War  and  the  War  in 
the  Transvaal." 

Upon  its  conclusion  Mr.  A.  V.  W.  Van  Vechten  sub 
mitted,  with  remarks,  the  following  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Society  be  presented 
to  Mr.  Adams  for  his  instructive  and  interesting  address 
before  the  Society  this  evening,  and  that  a  copy  be  re 
quested  for  publication. 

The  resolution  was  seconded  by  Mr.  William  P.  Prentice. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted  unanimously. 
Extract  from  the  minutes, 

SYDNEY  H.  CARNEY,  JR., 

Recording  Secretary. 


BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE.,  TREATY 
OF  WASHINGTON:  THE /"-AMERICAN 
CIVIL  WAR  AND  THE 
TRANSVAAL. 


NEGOTIATED  during  the  spring  of  1871,  and 
signed  on  the  8th  of  May  of  that  year,  the  Treaty  of 
Washington  not  only  put  to  rest  questions  of  differ 
ence  of  long  standing,  big  with  danger,  between 
the  two  leading  maritime  nations  of  the  world,  but 
it  incorporated  new  principles  of  the  first  importance 
into  the  body  of  established  International  Law. 
The  degree,  moreover,  to  which  that  treaty  has  in 
fluenced,  and  is  now  influencing,  the  course  of  hu 
man  affairs  and  historical  evolution  in  both  hemi 
spheres  is,  I  think,  little  appreciated.  To  that 
subject  I  propose  this  evening  to  address  myself. 

The  time  to  make  use  of  unpublished  material 
bearing  on  this  period — material  not  found  in  news 
papers,  public  archives  or  memoirs  which  have 
already  seen  the  light — has,  moreover,  come.  So 
far  as  any  considerable  political  or  diplomatic  result 
can  be  said  to  be  the  work  of  one  man,  the  Treaty 
of  Washington  was  the  work  of  Hamilton  Fish. 
Mr.  Fish  died  in  September,  1893 — now  over  eight 
years  ago.  When  the  treaty  was  negotiated  Gen 
eral  Grant  was  President ;  and  General  Grant  has 
been  dead  more  than  sixteen  years.  In  speaking 


8        Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington: 

of  this  treaty,  and  describing  the  complications 
which  led  up  to  it  and  to  which  it  incidentally 
gave  rise,  frequent  reference  must  be  made  to 
Charles  Sumner  and  John  Lothrop  Motley  ;  and, 
while  Mr.  Sumner  died  nearly  twenty-eight  years 
££t?,  Mr.;  Motley  followed  him  by  a  little  more 
than  three  years  only.  Thus  between  the  iith  of 
:Mkrclv  i$?4*  A*?d  jthe  7th  of  September,  1893,  all 
those  I  have  named — prominent  actors  in  the 
drama  I  am  to  describe— passed  from  the  stage. 
They  belonged  to  a  generation  that  is  gone.  Other 
public  characters  have  since  come  forward ;  new 
issues  have  presented  themselves.  The  once  fa 
mous  Alabama  claims  are  now  "ancient  history," 
and  the  average  man  of  to-day  hardly  knows  what 
is  referred  to  when  allusion  is  made  to  "  Conse 
quential  Damages  "  or  "  National  Injuries  "  in  con 
nection  therewith  ;  indeed,  why  should  he,  for 
when,  in  May,  1872,  that  issue  was  finally  put  to 
rest,  he  who  is  now  (1901)  President  of  the  United 
States  was  a  boy  in  his  fourteenth  year.  None  the 
less,  as  the  Treaty  of  Washington  was  a  very  mem 
orable  historical  event,  so  President  Grant,  Secre 
tary  Fish,  Senator  Sumner  and  Minister  Motley 
are  great  historic  figures.  Their  achievements  and 
dissensions  have  already  been  much  discussed,  and 
will  be  more  discussed  hereafter ;  and  to  that  dis 
cussion  I  propose  now  to  contribute  something. 
My  theme  ^includes  the  closing  scene  of  a  great 
drama ;  a  scene  in  the  development  of  which  the 
striking  play  of  individual  character  will  long  retain 
an  interest. 

History  aside,  moreover,  the  Treaty  of  Washing 
ton  itself  is  a  living,  and  it  may  even  be  said  a  con- 


American   Civil    War  and   War  in  the    Transvaal.     9 

trolling  factor  in  the  international  situation  of  to 
day  : 

11  And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action." 

That  treaty  was  signed  on  the  8th  of  May,  1871  ; 
the  battle  of  Majuba  Hill  took  place  nine  years  from 
the  following  27th  of  February.  The  two  events 
occurred  on  different  sides  of  the  equator  and  of  the 
Atlantic  ocean  ;  they  apparently  had  as  little  bear 
ing  on  each  other  as  it  was  possible  for  two  inci 
dents  to  have  ;  and  yet  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
latter  event  was  included  and  forestalled  in  the  set 
tlement  effected  through  the  earlier. 

I 

Between  1861  and  1865  the  United  States  was 
engaged  in  a  struggle  which  called  for  the  exertion 
of  all  the  force  at  its  command  ;  as,  to  a  lesser  ex 
tent,  Great  Britain  is  now.  The  similarity  between 
the  war  in  South  Africa  and  the  Confederate  War 
in  this  country  early  attracted  the  attention  of 
English  writers,  and  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  of 
their  civil  and  military  critics  has  put  on  record  a 
detailed  comparison  of  the  two.*  "  Each  of  these 
conflicts,"  this  authority  asserts,  "  had  its  origin  in 
conditions  of  long  and  gradual  growth,  rendering 
an  ultimate  explosion  inevitable.  Each  of  them 
deeply  affected  the  whole  existence  of  the  com 
munities  which  found  themselves  in  antagonism. 

o 

In  each  case,  therefore,  the  energy  and  the  duration 
of  the  fighting  far  exceeded  the  expectations  of 

*  Spenser  Wilkinson,  War  and  Policy  (1891),  pp.  419-36. 


io      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

most  of  those  who  might  have  seemed  to  be  in  a 
position   to  judge."     To   the   same  effect,  another 
author*  refers  to  the  "  striking  'resemblance  "  be 
tween  the  two  struggles.     "  The  analogy,"  he  says, 
"like   any  other   historical   analogy,    must    not   be 
pressed  too  far,  but  there  is  a  remarkable  parallel 
ism  in  the  general  character  of  the  political  issues,  in 
the  course  of  negotiations  preceding  war,  and  in  the 
actual  conduct  of  the  campaigns,  a  parallelism  which 
sometimes  comes  out  in  the  most  insignificant  de 
tails."     This    analogy    the    writer    might    advanta 
geously  have  carried  into  his  discussion  of  the  effect 
of  both  wars  on  foreign  opinion  at  the  time  of  each. 
He  correctly  enough  admits  that,  during  the  strug 
gle  in  South  Africa — "  The  whole  of  Europe  almost 
was  against  us,  not  so  much  from  any  consideration 
of  the  merits  of  the  case,  as  from  the  dislike  and  jeal 
ousy  of  England  which   have  developed  so   enor 
mously  in  the  last  decade  "  ;  but  he  significantly  adds 
— "  In  the  United  States  sympathies  were  much  di 
vided."     In   fact,  during  our  Civil  War  the  entire 
sympathies  and  hearty  good-will  of  the  great  body  of 
those  composing  what  are  known  as  the  governing 
and  influential  classes  throughout  Europe  west  of 
the  Vistula,  were  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  Con 
federacy.      In  these   classes  would  be  included   all 
those  of  rank,  members  of  the  learned  professions, 
the  commercial,  financial  and  banking  circles,  and 
officers  of  the  two  services,  the  Army  and  the  Navy. 
And,  then  also  as  in  the  case  of  the  South  African 
war,  this  instructive  accord  arose,   not  "  from  any 
consideration  of  the  merits  of  the  case,"  but  from 
"dislike  and  jealousy"; — the  dislike  and  jealousy 
*  The  Times's  History  of  the  War  in  South  Africa. 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  tJie    Transvaal.    1 1 

of  American  democracy,  which  "had  developed  so 
enormously  in  the  course  "  of  the  decade  or  two  im 
mediately  preceding  the  outbreak  of  1861.  Espe 
cially  was  this  true  of  England  ;  there  "sympathies 
were  much  divided,"  but  the  line  of  cleavage  was 
horizontal,  not  perpendicular.  The  poor,  the  lowly 
and  the  conscientious  instinctively  sympathized  with 
the  Union  and  the  North  ;  while  of  the  privileged 
and  the  moneyed,  the  commercial  and  manufactur 
ing  classes,  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  nine  out 
of  ten  were  heart  and  soul  on  the  side  of  the  rebel 
and  slaveholder.  It  is  only  necessary  for  me  fur 
ther  to  premise  that  as  respects  foreign  govern 
ments,  and  the  principles  of  international  law  and 
amity  relating  to  the  concession  of  belligerent  rights, 
—the  recognition  of  nationality,  neutrality,  and  par 
ticipation  of  neutrals,  direct  and  indirect,  in  the  oper 
ations  of  war, — the  position  of  the  Confederacy  and 
of  the  two  South  African  republics  were  in  essen 
tials  the  same.  The  latter,  it  is  true,  were  not  mari 
time  countries,  so  that  no  questions  of  blockade, 
and  comparatively  few  of  contraband,  arose;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  while  the  Confederates  were,  as 
respects  foreign  nations,  insurgents  pure  and  sim 
ple,  the  South  African  republics  had  governments 
de  jure  as  well  as  de  facto.  Great  Britain  claimed 
over  them  a  species  of  suzerainty  only,  undefined 
at  best,  and  plainly  questionable  by  any  power  dis 
inclined  to  recognize  it.  This  the  British  authori 
ties  *  deplore,  and  try  to  explain  away ;  but  the 
fact  is  not  denied. 

So  far,  therefore,  as  the  status  of  those  in  arms 
against  a  government  claiming   sovereignty   is   of 

*  The  Times's  History,  vol.  i.,  chap.  4. 


12      Before  and  After  tJie    Treaty  of   Washington: 

moment,  the  position  of  the  South  African  republics 
was,  in  1900,  far  stronger  with  all  nations  on  terms 
of  amity  with  Great  Britain  than  was  the  position 
of  the  Confederacy  in  1861-62  with  nations  then  at 
amity  with  the  United  States.  It  consequently 
followed  that  any  precedent  created,  or  rule  laid 
down,  by  a  neutral  for  its  own  guidance  in  inter 
national  relations  during  the  first  struggle  was  ap 
plicable  in  the  second,  except  in  so  far  as  such  rule 
or  precedent  had  been  modified  or  set  aside  by 
mutual  agreement  of  the  parties  concerned  during 
the  intervening  years.  What  then  were  these 
rules  and  precedents  established  by  Great  Britain 
in  its  dealings  with  the  United  States  in  1861-5, 
which,  unless  altered  by  mutual  consent  during  the 
intervening  time,  would  have  been  applicable  by 
the  United  States  to  Great  Britain  in  1899-1901  ? 

In  the  opening  pages  of  his  account  of  the  do 
ings  of  the  agents  of  the  Confederacy  in  Europe 
during  our  Civil  war,  Captain  James  A.  Bulloch, 
of  the  Confederate  States  Navy,  the  most  trusted 
and  efficient  of  those  agents,  says  that  "  the  Con 
federate  government  made  great  efforts  to  organize 
a  naval  force  abroad  "  ;  and  he  adds,  truly  enough, 
"  that  the  naval  operations  of  the  Confederate 
States  which  were  [thus]  organized  abroad,  pos 
sess  an  importance  and  attraction  greater  than 
their  relative  effect  upon  the  issue  of  the  struggle." 
Captain  Bulloch  might  well  have  gone  further.  He 
might  have  added  that,  in  connection  with  those 
operations,  the  public  men,  high  officials,  courts  of 
law  and  colonial  authorities  of  Great  Britain  more 
especially,  supported  by  the  press  and  general 
public  opinion  of  that  country,  labored  conjointly 


American   Civil    War  and   War  in  the    Transvaal.     13 

and  strenuously,  blindly  and  successfully,  to  build 
up  a  structure  of  rules  and  precedents,  not  less 
complete  and  solid  than  well  calculated,  whenever 
the  turn  of  Great  Britain  might  come, — as  come  in 
time  it  surely  would, — to  work  the  downfall  of  the 
Empire.  As  that  record  carries  in  it  a  lesson  of 
deep  significance  to  all  entrusted  with  the  tempo 
rary  administration  of  national  affairs,  it  should 
neither  be  forgotten  nor  ignored.  It  is  well  that 
statesmen,  also,  should  occasionally  be  reminded 
that,  with  nations  as  with  individuals,  there  is  a 
to-morrow,  and  the  whirligig  of  time  ever  brings  on 
its  revenges.  "All  things  come  to  him  who  waits"  ; 
and  the  motto  of  the  House  of  Ravenswood  was  — 
"  I  bide  my  time." 

When  hostilities  broke  out  in  April,  1861,  the 
so-called  Confederate  States  of  America  did  not 
have  within  their  own  limits  any  of  the  essentials 
to  a  maritime  warfare.  With  a  long  coast  line  and 
numerous  harbors,  in  itself  and  by  itself,  so  far  as 
aggressive  action  was  concerned,  it  could  not  be, 
or  be  made,  a  base  of  naval  operations.  It  had  no 
machine-shops  nor  yards  ;  no  ship-wrights,  and  no 
collection  of  material  for  ship-building  or  the  equip 
ment  of  ships.  In  the  days  when  rebellion  was 
as  yet  only  incipient,  it  was  correctly  deemed  of 
prime  importance  to  get  cruisers  ;  but  a  diligent 
search  throughout  the  ports  of  the  Confederacy 
disclosed  but  one  small  steamer  at  all  adapted  for 
a  cruising  service.  Under  these  circumstances  the 
minds  of  those  composing  the  as  yet  embryotic 
government  at  Montgomery  turned  naturally  to 
Europe;  and,  in  the  early  days  of  May,  1861,  im 
mediately  after  the  reduction  of  Fort  Sumter,  a 


14      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

scheme  was  matured  for  making  Great  Britain  the 
base  of  Confederate  naval  operations  against  the 
United  States.  The  nature  and  £cope  of  the  Brit 
ish  statutes  had  been  looked  into  ;  the  probability 
of  the  early  issuance  of  a  proclamation  of  neutral 
ity  by  the  government  of  Great  Britain  was  con 
sidered,  and  the  officials  of  the  Confederate  Naval 
Department  were  already  confident  that  the  Mont 
gomery  government  would  be  recognized  by  Eu 
ropean  powers  as  a  de  facto  organization.  To  it, 
as  such,  belligerent  rights  would  be  conceded  ;  and, 
in  such  case,  the  maritime  shelter  and  privileges 
common  to  belligerents  under  the  amity  of  nations, 
would  be  granted  to  its  regularly  commissioned 
cruisers. 

The  officers  in  question  next  looked  about  for 
some  competent  Confederate  sympathizer,  who 
might  be  despatched  to  Europe  and  there  be  a 
species  of  Secretary  in  parti  bus.  They  decided 
upon  James  A.  Bulloch,  at  the  time  a  lieutenant  in 
the  United  States  Navy  detailed  by  the  Govern 
ment  for  the  command  of  the  Bienville,  a  privately 
owned  mail  steamer  running  between  New  York 
and  New  Orleans.  A  Georgian  by  birth  and  ap 
pointment,  Lieutenant  Bulloch  went  with  his  State, 
and  at  once  after  Georgia  seceded  put  himself  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Confederate  government.  He 
was  requested  forthwith  to  report  at  Montgomery  ; 
and  there,  on  the  8th  and  Qth  of  May  he  received 
from  S.  K.  Mallory,  the  Confederate  Naval  Secre 
tary,  verbal  instructions  covering  all  essential  points 
of  procedure.  On  the  night  of  the  pth  of  May, 
Bulloch  left  Montgomery  for  Liverpool,  his  duly 
designated  seat  of  operations.  Arriving  there  on 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the    Transvaal.    15 

the  4th  of  June,  Secretary  Mallory's  assistant  at 
once  entered  on  his  duties,  not  only  purchasing 
naval  supplies,  but,  before  the  close  of  the  month 
he  had  contracted  with  a  Liverpool  ship-builder  for 
the  construction  of  a  cruiser,  and  it  was  already 
partly  in  frame.  The  Queen's  proclamation  of 
neutrality  had  then  been  issued  some  six  weeks. 
The  vessel  now  on  the  stocks  was  at  first  called 
the  Oreto  ;  afterwards  it  attained  an  international 
celebrity  as  the  Florida.  Acting  with  an  energy 
which  quite  justified  his  selection  for  the  work  of 
the  Confederacy  then  in  hand  to  be  done,  Captain 
Bulloch  on  the  first  of  the  following  August  entered 
into  another  contract,  this  time  with  the  Messrs. 
Laird,  under  which  the  keel  of  a  second  cruiser 
was  immediately  afterwards  laid  in  the  yards  of 
that  firm  at  Birkenhead.  The  purpose  of  the  Con 
federate  government  was  well  defined.  It  was  not 
merely  to  buy  or  build  single  vessels  of  war  in 
British  ports  and  dockyards,  but  it  was  proposed 
to  maintain  in  Liverpool  a  permanent  representa 
tive  of  its  Navy  Department, — a  species  of  branch 
office,  or  bureau,  with  a  deputy  secretary  at  its 
head, — and,  through  him,  using  the  ports  of  the 
Mersey,  the  Clyde  and  the  Thames  as  arsenals,  to 
construct  ships,  and  secure  naval  supplies,  so  long 
as  the  war  might  last.  No  real  hindrance  was 
anticipated.  In  other  words,  Great  Britain  was  to 
be  made  the  base  of  an  organized  maritime  war 
fare  against  the  United  States,  the  Confederacy 
itself  being  confessedly  unable  to  conduct  such  a 
warfare  from  within  its  own  limits.  The  single 
question  was — Would  Great  Britain  permit  itself 
to  be  thus  used  as  a  naval  base  and  arsenal  for  the 


1 6      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington: 

construction,  equipment  and  despatch  of  commerce- 
destroyers  and  battle  ships  intended  to  be  used 
against  a  nation  with  which  it  was  at  peace  ? 

Excepting  only  the  good  faith,  friendly  purpose 
and  apparently  obvious  self-interest  of  a  civilized 
government  in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  the  provisions  of  the  British  Foreign  Enlist 
ment  Act  of  1819  constituted  the  only  barrier  in 
the  way  of  the  consummation  of  this  extraordinary 
project, — a  project  which  all  will  now  agree  was 
tantamount  to  a  proposal  that,  so  far  as  commerce- 
destroyers  were  concerned,  the  first  maritime  na 
tion  of  the  world  should  become  an  accomplice  in 
piracy  before  the  fact.  As  the  date  of  its  enact 
ment  (1819)  implies,  the  British  Foreign  Enlist 
ment  Act  was  passed  at  the  time  of  the  troubles 
incident  to  the  separation  of  its  American  depend 
encies  from  Spain,  and  was  designed  to  prevent 
the  fitting  out  in  British  ports  of  piratical  expedi 
tions  against  Spanish  commerce,  under  cover  of 
letters-of-marque,  &c.,  issued  by  South  American 
insurrectionary  governments.  Owing  to  the  long 
peace  which  ensued  on  its  passage,  the  Act  had 
slept  innocuously  on  the  statute  book,  no  case  in 
volving  a  forfeiture  ever  having  been  brought  to 
trial  under  it.  It  was  an  instance  of  desuetude, 
covering  more  than  forty  years. 

A  clumsy,  cumbersome  statute,  the  Foreign  En 
listment  Act  was,  after  the  manner  of  English  Acts 
of  Parliament,  overloaded  with  a  mass  of  phrases, 
alike  imprecise  and  confused,  with  so  much  of  tedi 
ous  superfluity  of  immaterial  circumstance  "  as  to 
suggest  a  suspicion  that  it  must  have  been  "  spe 
cially  designed  to  give  scope  to  bar  chicanery,  to 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    17 

facilitate  the  escape  of  offenders,  and  to  embarrass 
and  confound  the  officers  of  the  government  charged 
with  the  administration  of  law.  It  was,  in  short, 
one  of  those  statutes  in  which  the  British  Parlia 
mentary  draughtsman  has  prescriptively  revelled, 
and  through  the  clauses  of  which  judge  and  barris 
ter  love,  as  the  phrase  goes,  to  drive  a  coach-and- 
six.  But  it  so  chanced  that,  in  the  present  case, 
the  coach-and-six  had,  as  passengers,  the  whole 
British  ministry,  and,  in  it,  they  were  doomed  to 
flounder  pitifully  along  "  in  the  flat  morass  of  [a] 
meaningless  verbosity  and  confused  circumlocu 
tion."  *  Upon  the  proper  construction  of  this  not 
able  act,  the  Confederate  representatives  at  once 
sought  the  opinion  of  counsel ;  and  they  were  pres 
ently  advised  that,  under  its  provisions,  it  would  be 
an  offense  for  a  British  subject  to  build,  arm  and 
equip  a  vessel  to  cruise  against  the  commerce  of  a 
friendly  state  ;  but  the  mere  building  of  a  ship, 
though  with  the  full  intent  of  so  using  her,  was  no 
offense  ;  nor  was  it  an  offense  to  equip  a  vessel  so 
built,  if  it  was  without  the  intent  so  to  use  her. 
To  constitute  an  offense  the  two  acts  of  building  a 
ship  with  intent  of  hostile  use,  and  equipping  the 
same  must  be  combined ;  and  the  things  must  be 
done  in  British  waters.  It  hence  followed  that, 
under  the  Act,  it  was  lawful  for  an  English  firm  to 
build  a  ship  in  a  British  ship-yard  designed  pur 
posely  to  prey  on  American  commerce  ;  it  was  also 
lawful  to  sell  or  buy  the  articles  of  necessary  equip 
ment  for  such  vessel,  from  cordage  to  arms  and 
ammunition  ;  but  the  articles  of  equipment  must 
not  go  into  the  vessel,  thus  making  of  her  a  com- 

*  Geneva  Arbitration  ;  Argument  of  the  United  States,  p.  61. 


1 8      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

plete  cruiser,  within  British  maritime  jurisdiction. 
The  final  act  of  conjunction  must  be  effected  at 
some  distance  greater  than  on»  league  from  where 
a  British  writ  ran.  Assuming  this  construction  of 
the  Foreign  Enlistment  Act  to  be  correct,  its  eva 
sion  was  simple.  It  could  be  enforced  practically 
only  with  a  government  strong  enough  to  decline 
to  allow  its  international  obligations  to  be  trifled 
with.  If,  however,  those  in  office  evinced  the 
slightest  indifference  respecting  the  enforcement  of 
international  obligations,  and  much  more  if  the 
government  was  infected  by  any  spirit  of  conni 
vance,  the  act  at  once  became  a  statute  mockery. 

In  any  large  view  of  policy  Great  Britain  then 
was,  as  it  now  is,  under  strong  inducement  to  insist 
on  the  highest  standard  of  international  maritime 
observance.  As  the  foremost  ocean-carrier  of  the 
world,  it  ill  became  her  to  connive  at  commerce 
destroying.  But,  in  1861,  Great  Britain  had  a 
divided  interest ;  and  British  money-making  in 
stincts  are  well-developed.  She  was  the  arsenal 
and  ship-builder  of  the  world,  as  well  as  its  ocean- 
carrier.  Her  artizans  could  launch  from  private 
dock-yards  vessels  of  any  size,  designed  for  any 
purpose,  thoroughly  equipped  whether  for  peace  or 
war;  and  all  at  the  shortest  possible  notice.  Un 
der  ordinary  circumstances,  this  was  a  legitimate 
branch  of  industry.  It  admitted,  however,  of  easy 
perversion  ;  and  the  question  in  1861  was  whether 
the  first  of  commercial  nations  would  permit  its 
laws  to  be  so  construed  as  to  establish  the  princi 
ple  that,  in  case  of  war,  any  neutral  might  convert 
its  ports  into  nurseries  of  corsairs  for  the  use  or  in 
jury  of  either  belligerent,  or  of  both.  This  was  the 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    19 

exact  use  the  Confederacy  in  1861  deliberately 
designed  to  make  of  Great  Britain.  As  its  author 
ized  agent  and  representative  twenty  years  later 
expressed  it, — "  The  object  of  the  Confederate 
Government  was  not  merely  to  buy  or  build  a  sin 
gle  ship,  but  it  was  to  maintain  a  permanent  repre 
sentative  of  the  Navy  Department  [in  Great  Brit 
ain]  and  to  get  ships  and  naval  supplies  without 
hindrance  as  long  as  the  war  lasted."* 

It  is  now  necessary  briefly  to  recall  a  once  famil 
iar  record  showing  the  extent  to  which  Great  Brit 
ain  lent  itself  to  this  scheme,  and  the  precedents  it 
created  while  so  doing.  All  through  the  later  sum 
mer  of  1 86 1 — the  months  following  the  disgrace  of 
Bull  Run  and  the  incident  of  the  Trent, — the  work 
of  Confederate  naval  construction  was  pushed  vig 
orously  along  in  the  Liverpool  and  Birkenhead 
ship-yards.  Hardly  any  concealment  was  attempted 
of  the  purpose  for  which  the  Oreto  and  the  "  290," 
—as  the  two  vessels  were  called  or  designated,— 
was  designed.  As  the  work  on  them  progressed, 
it  was  openly  supervised  by  agents  known  to  be  in 
the  Confederate  employ,  while  British  government 
officials,  having  free  access  to  the  yards,  looked  to 
it  that  the  empty  letter  of  the  law  was  observed. 
Never  was  a  solemn  mockery  more  carefully  en 
acted  ;  never  was  there  a  more  insulting  pretence  at 
the  observance  of  international  obligations  ;  never 
a  more  perfect  instance  of  connivance  at  a  contem 
plated  crime,  though  not  so  nominated  in  the  bond. 

The  Florida,  we  are   told  by  Captain   Bulloch, 
was  the  first  regularly  built  war  vessel  of  the  Con- 

*  Bulloch,  The  Secret  Service  of  the  Confederate  States  in  Europe, 
vol.  i,  p.  65  ;  vol.  ii,  p.  216. 


2O      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

federate  States  Navy.  "  She  has,"  he  wrote  at  the 
time,  "been  twice  inspected  by^the  Custom  House 
authorities,  in  compliance  with  specific  orders  from 
the  Foreign  Office.  *  *  *  The  hammock-net 
tings,  ports,  and  general  appearance  of  the  ship  suf 
ficiently  indicate  the  ultimate  object  of  her  construc 
tion,  but  *  *  *  registered  as  an  English  ship, 
in  the  name  of  an  Englishman,  commanded  by  an 
Englishman,  with  a  regular  official  number  under 
the  direction  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  she  seems  to 
be  perfectly  secure  against  capture  or  interference, 
until  an  attempt  is  made  to  arm  her."  Another  ves 
sel,  carrying  the  armament  of  this  contemplated 
commerce-destroyer,  left  England  at  so  nearly  the 
same  time  as  the  Oreto  that  those  in  charge  of  the 
latter  vessel  increased  her  speed,  being  apprehen 
sive  that  their  consort  would  arrive  at  the  point  of 
rendezvous  first.  Making  Nassau,  an  English  port, 
the  last  pretence  at  concealment  as  to  character 
and  destination  disappeared,  in  consequence  of  the 
heedless  talk  of  a  Confederate  officer  there  to  join 
her ;  a  portion  of  her  crew,  also,  immediately  re 
ported  to  the  British  naval  commander  at  the  sta 
tion  that  the  vessel's  destination  could  not  be  as 
certained.  She  was  seized  ;  but,  after  some  legal 
forms  and  a  pretence  of  a  hearing,  a  decree  of  res 
toration  was  entered.  Subsequently,  before  being 
herself  destroyed,  she  captured,  and  burnt  or  bond 
ed,  some  seventy  vessels  carrying  the  United  States 
flag.  A  precedent  complete  at  every  point  had  been 
created. 

Relying  on  the  advice  of  counsel  and  the  ex 
perience  gained  in  the  case  of  the  Florida,  there 
was  absolutely  no  concealment  of  purpose  even  at- 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    21 

tempted  as  respects  the  Alabama.  Built  under  a 
contract  entered  into  with  the  avowed  agent  of  the 
Confederacy,  that  the  "  290 "  was  designed  as  a 
Confederate  commerce-destroyer  was  town  talk  in 
Liverpool,  —  ''quite  notorious,"  as  the  American 
consul  expressed  it.  She  was  launched  on  the  15th 
of  May,  1862,  as  the  Enrico,  "with  no  attempt,"  as 
Captain  Bulloch  testifies,  "  to  deceive  any  one  by 
any  pretence  whatever."  Everything  was  done  in 
the  "ordinary  commonplace  way,"  and  "no  mys 
tery  or  disguise "  was  deemed  necessary.*  The 
Lairds  knew  that  they  were  building  a  cruiser  for 
the  Confederate  government,  specially  constructed 
as  a  commerce-destroyer ;  and  they  carefully  ob 
served  what  their  counsel  advised  them  was  the  law 
of  the  land.  They  simply  built  a  vessel  designed  to 
do  certain  work  in  a  war  then  in  progress  ;  the 
equipment  of  that  vessel,  including  its  armament, 
was  in  course  of  preparation  elsewhere.  Of  that 
they  knew  nothing.  They  were  not  informed  ;  nor, 
naturally,  did  they  care  to  ask.  The  vessel  and  her 
equipment  would  come  together  outside  of  British 
jurisdiction.  Such  was  the  law ;  Great  Britain  lived 
under  a  government  of  law;  and  "to  strain  the 
law  "  the  government  was  in  no  way  inclined.  The 
agents  of  the  Confederacy,  moreover,  "  had  the 
means  of  knowing  with  well-nigh  absolute  certainty 
what  was  the  state  of  the  negotiations  between  the 
United  States  minister  and  Her  Majesty's  govern 
ment."  f  The  work  of  completion  was,  however, 
pressed  forward  with  significant  energy  after  the 
launching  of  the  vessel ;  so  that,  by  the  middle  of 
June,  she  went  out  on  a  trial  trip.  An  Englishman, 

*  Bulloch,  vol.  ii,  p.  229.  \Ibid.,  vol.  i,  pp.  229,  260-1. 


22      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

having  a  Board  of  Trade  certificate,  was  then  en 
gaged  "  merely  to  take  the  ship  to  an  appointed 
place  without  the  United  Kingdom,"  where  she  was 
to  meet  a  consort  bearing  her  armament. 

That  armament  was  in  course  of  preparation  else 
where  in  Great  Britain,  and  included  "everything 
required  for  the  complete  equipment  of  a  man-of- 
war."  The  goods,  when  ready,  were  "  packed, 
marked,  and  held  for  shipping  orders."  The  Agrip- 
pina,  a  suitable  barque  of  400  tons  measurement, 
was  then  purchased,  and  quietly  loaded  at  the  Lon 
don  docks.  Between  the  two  vessels  —  the  one 
building  on  the  Mersey,  the  other  taking  on  board 
a  cargo  in  the  Thames — there  was  no  apparent  con 
nection.  Every  arrangement  for  the  destruction  of 
the  commerce  of  a  nation  at  peace  with  Great  Brit 
ain  was  being  made  under  the  eyes  of  the  customs 
officials,  but  with  scrupulous  regard  to  the  provisions 
of  the  Foreign  Enlistment  Act. 

A  single  word  from  the  British  Foreign  Office 
would  then  have  sufficed  to  put  a  stop  to  the  whole 
scheme.  That  office  was  fully  advised  by  the  Amer 
ican  minister  of  what  was  common  town-talk  at  Liv 
erpool.  The  Confederate  agent  there  in  charge  of 
operations  was  as  well  known  as  the  Collector  of 
the  Port,  Had  those  then  officially  responsible  for 
Great  Britain's  honor  and  interests  been  in  earnest, 
public  notice  would  have  been  given  to  all  con 
cerned,  including  belligerents, — under  the  designa 
tion  of  evil-disposed  persons, — that  Her  Majesty's 
government  did  not  propose  to  have  Great  Britain's 
neutrality  trifled  with  or  the  laws  evaded.  Her 
ports  were  not  to  be  made,  by  either  belligerent, 
directly  or  through  evasion,  a  basis  of  naval  opera- 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    23 

tions  against  the  other.  Any  ship  constructed  for 
warlike  purposes,  upon  the  builders  of  which  notice 
had  been  served  at  the  application  of  either  bellig 
erent,  would  be  held  affected  by  such  notice ;  and 
thereafter,  in  case  of  evasion,  would  not  be  entitled 
to  the  rights  of  hospitality  in  any  British  waters. 
Whether,  under  the  principles  of  international  law, 
such  vessel  could  be  held  so  tainted  by  evasion 
after  notice  as  to  be  subject  to  seizure  and  detention 
whenever  and  wherever  found  within  British  juris 
diction,  would  be  matter  of  further  consideration. 
This  course  was  one  authorized  by  international  law, 
and  well  understood  at  the  time.  The  Attorney 
General,  for  instance,  in  debate  declared — "  I  have 
not  the  least  doubt  that  we  have  a  right,  if  we 
thought  fit,  to  exclude  from  our  own  ports  any  par 
ticular  ship  or  class  of  ships,  if  we  consider  that  they 
have  violated  our  neutrality."  And,  three  months 
before  the  first  law  adviser  of  the  Crown  thus  ex 
pressed  himself,  Sir  Vernon  Harcourt  had  said  in  a 
letter  published  in  the  Times — "I  think  that  to 
deny  to  the  Florida  and  to  the  Alabama  access  to 
our  ports  would  be  the  legitimate  and  dignified  man 
ner  of  expressing  our  disapproval  of  the  fraud  which 
has  been  practiced  on  our  neutrality.  If  we  abstain 
from  taking  such  a  course,  I  fear  we  may  justly  lie 
under  the  imputation  of  having  done  less  to  vindi 
cate  our  good  faith  than  the  American  government 
consented  at  our  instance,  upon  former  occasions,  to 
do."  Finally,  England's  Chief  Justice  laid  do\vn 
the  rule  in  the  following  broad  terms, — "A  sover 
eign  has  absolute  dominion  in  and  over  his  own 
ports  and  waters.  He  can  permit  the  entrance  into 
them  to  the  ships  of  other  nations,  or  refuse  it ;  he 


24      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington  : 

can  grant  it  to  some,  can  deny  it  to  others ;  he  can 
subject  it  to  such  restrictions,  conditions,  or  regula 
tions  as  he  pleases.  But,  by  the  universal  comity 
of  nations,  in  the  absence  of  such  restrictions  of  pro 
hibition,  the  ports  and  waters  of  every  nation  are 
open  to  all  comers." 

Unless,  therefore,  the  British  ministry  was  will 
ing  to  stand  forward  as  openly  conniving  at  pro 
ceedings  calculated  to  bring  into  contempt  the  law 
and  the  Queen's  proclamation,  the  course  to  be 
pursued  was  plain  ;  and  the  mere  declaration  of  a 
purpose  to  pursue  that  course,  while  it  would  in  no 
way  have  interfered  with  legitimate  ship  construc 
tion,  would  have  put  an  immediate  stop  to  the 
building  and  equipment  of  commerce-destroyers. 
The  law,  even  as  it  then  stood,  was  sufficient,  had 
the  goverment  only  declared  a  purpose.  Had  the 
will  been  there,  a  way  had  not  been  far  to  seek. 

No  such  notice  was  conveyed.  In  vain  the 
American  minister  protested.  No  evidence  as  to  the 
character  of  the  proposed  cruiser,  or  the  purpose 
for  which  she  was  designed,  possible  for  him  to 
adduce,  was  adjudged  satisfactory ;  and,  finally, 
when  the  case  became  so  flagrant  that  action  could 
not  in  decency  be  delayed, t  a  timely  intimation 

*  Papers  Relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington  (Ed.  1872),  vol.  iv, 
pp.  416,  418. 

t  Much  has  been  written,  and  more  said,  as  to  the  particular  per 
son  upon  whom  rested  responsibility  for  the  evasion  of  the  Alabama. 
Collusion  on  the  part  of  officers  has  been  charged,  and  it  was  at  one 
time  even  alleged  that  Mr.  S.  Price  Edwards,  then  collector  of  the 
port  of  Liverpool,  had  been  the  recipient  of  a  bribe.  This  is  em 
phatically  denied  by  Captain  Bulloch  (vol.  i,  pp.  258-64)  and  no 
evidence  has  ever  come  to  light  upon  which  to  rest  such  an  improb 
able  imputation.  Under  these  circumstances  the  following  intensely 
characteristic  avowal  of  Earl  Russell,  in  his  volume  of  Recollcc- 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    25 

reached  the  Confederate  agent  through  some  un 
known  channel,  and,  on  the  28th  of  July,  1862,  the 
Alabama  went  out  on  a  trial  trip  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Mersey,  from  which  she  did  not  return.  With 
British  papers,  and  flying  the  British  flag,  she  three 
days  later  got  under  weigh  for  the  Azores.  At  al 
most  the  same  hour,  moving  under  orders  from  the 
Confederate  European  Naval  Bureau  at  Liverpool, 
her  consort,  the  Agrippina,  loaded  with  munitions 
and  equipment,  cleared  from  London.  The  two 
met  at  the  place  designated  ;  and  there,  outside  of 
British  jurisdiction,  the  stores,  arms  and  equip 
ment  were  duly  transferred.  A  few  days  later,  the 
forms  of  transfer  having  been  gone  through  with,  the 
British  master  turned  the  ship  over  to  the  Confed 
erate  commander,  his  commission  was  read  and 
the  Confederate  flag  run  up.  After  which  some 
what  empty  ceremonies,  the  "  290,"  now  the  Ala 
bama,  stood  purified  of  any  evasion  of  English  law, 
and,  as  a  duly  commissioned  foreign  man-of-war, 
was  thereafter  entitled  to  all  belligerent  rights  and 
hospitalities  within  British  jurisdiction.  Incredible 
as  it  now  must  seem  to  Englishmen  as  well  as  to 
us,  a  British  ministry,  of  which  Lord  Palmerston 
was  the  head,  then  professed  itself  impotent  to  vin 
dicate  its  authority  or  to  assert  the  majesty,  or  even 

tions  and  Suggestions,  published  in  1875,  has  a  refreshing  sound. 
Such  curt  frankness  causes  a  feeling  of  respect  for  the  individual 
man  to  predominate  over  any,  or  all,  other  sentiments.  The  pas 
sage  referred  to  (p.  407)  is  as  follows  : — "  I  assent  entirely  to  the  opin 
ions  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  [in  his  award  in  the  Ge 
neva  Arbitration]  that  the  '  Alabama  '  ought  to  have  been  detained 
during  the  four  days  in  which  I  was  waiting  for  the  opinion  of  the 
Law  Officers.  But  I  think  that  the  fault  was  not  that  of  the  Com 
missioners  of  the  Customs  [as  asserted  by  Lord  Cockburn]  ;  it  was 
my  fault,  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs." 


26      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

the  dignity,  of  the  law.  It  had  been  made  the  dupe 
of  what  Lord  Cockbtira  not  inaptly  termed  "  con 
trivances," — "  the  artifices  and"  tricks,  to  which  the 
unscrupulous  cunning  of  the  Confederate  agents  did 
not  hesitate  to  resort  in  violation  of  British  neutral 
ity  "  * — and  yet  the  poor  victim  of  these  "  artifices 
and  tricks"  professed  itself  utterly  unable  to  make 
itself  respected,  much  less  to  vindicate  its  authority. 
At  a  later  day  Earl  Russell  recovered  the  use  of  his 
faculties  and  his  command  of  language.  He  then, 
though  the  law  had  not  in  the  mean  time  been 
changed,  found  means  to  let  the  Confederate 
agents  understand  that  "  such  shifts  and  stratagems" 
were  "  totally  unjustifiable  and  manifestly  offensive 
to  the  British  Crown." 

Such  are  the  simple  facts  in  the  case.  And  now, 
looking  back  through  the  perspective  of  forty  years 
and  speaking  with  all  moderation,  is  it  unfair  to  ask 
—Was  any  great  nation  ever  guilty  of  a  more  wan 
ton,  a  more  obtuse,  or  a  more  criminal  dereliction  ? 
The  world's  great  ocean-carrier  permitted  a  bel 
ligerent  of  its  own  creation  to  sail  a  commerce-de 
stroyer  through  its  statutes  ;  and  then,  because  of 
an  empty  transfer,  set  up  a  brazen  pretence  that  in 
affording  protection  and  hospitality  to  the  vessel 
thus  existing  through  an  evasion  of  its  own  law, 
Great  Britain  did  not  stand  an  accomplice  in  piracy. 
"  Shall  the  blessed  sdn  of  heaven  prove  a  micher 
and  eat  black-berries  ? — a  question  not  to  be  asked. 
Shall  the  son  of  England  prove  a  thief,  and  take 
purses  ? — a  question  to  be  asked." 

It  is   not   necessary  further  to   follow  the  law  of 

*  Papers  Relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington  (Ed.  1872),  vol.  iv, 
P-  377- 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    27 

Great  Britain  as  then  laid  down,  or  to  enumerate 
the  precedents  created  under  it.  One  thing  led  to 
another.  In  the  Autumn  of  1861  Captain  Bulloch 
ran  the  blockade,  and,  visiting"  Richmond,  con 
ferred  with  his  chief,  the  Secretary  of  the  Confed 
erate  Navy.  He  then  learned  that  the  designs  of 
the  Richmond  government  as  respects  naval  oper 
ations  from  a  British  base  had  "  assumed  a  broader 
range."  *  Secretary  Mallory  now  contemplated  the 
construction  in  Great  Britain  of  "the  best  type  of 
armored  vessels  for  operations  on  the  coast  * 
to  open  and  protect  the  blockaded  ports.  '  *  *  It 
was  impossible  to  build  them  in  the  Confederate 
States  —  neither  the  materials  nor  the  machines 
were  there  ;  and  besides,  even  if  iron  and  skilled 
artizans  had  been  within  reach,  there  was  not  a 
mill  in  the  country  to  roll  the  plates,  nor  furnaces 
and  machinery  to  forge  them,  nor  shops  to  make 
the  engines."  f  This  was  a  distinct  step  in  advance. 
Earl  Russell  had  declared  that  one  great  object  of 
the  British  government  was  to  preserve  "  for  the 
nation  the  legitimate  and  lucrative  trade  of  ship 
building  "  ;  and  if  it  was  "  legitimate  "  to  construct 
a  single  commerce-destroyer  to  take  part  in  hos 
tilities  then  going  on,  why  was  it  not  legitimate  to 
construct  a  squadron  of  turreted  iron-clads  ?  It 
certainly  was  more  "  lucrative."  In  the  words  of 
Mr.  Gladstone,  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
the  Confederate  leaders,  having  made  an  army, 
"  are  making,  it  appears,  a  navy  "  ;  and  the  "lucra 
tive  trade  "  of  constructing  that  navy  naturally  fell 
to  the  ship-wrights  of  the  Mersey.  The  Prime 
Minister  of  Great  Britain  now,  also,  boldly  took 

*  Bulloch,  vol.  i,  p.  277.  f  Ibid.,  p.  380. 


28      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington: 

the  ground  in  Parliamentary  debate — speaking,  of 
course,  for  the  Government — that  of  this  no  bel 
ligerent  had  any  cause  to  ccfmplain.  "  As  a  mer 
cantile  transaction  "  British  merchants  and  manu 
facturers  were  at  liberty  to  supply,  and  had  a  right 
to  supply,  one  or  both  of "  the  belligerents,  not 
only  with  arms  and  cannon,  but  also  with  ships 
destined  for  warlike  purposes."  To  the  same  ef 
fect  the  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  informed  the 
United  States  minister  that,  except  on  the  ground 
of  any  proved  violation  of  the  Foreign  Enlistment 
Act  *  *  Her  Majesty's  Government  cannot 

interfere  with  commercial  dealings  between  British 
subjects  and  the  so  -  styled  Confederate  States, 
whether  the  object  of  those  dealings  be  money,  or 
contraband  goods,  or  even  ships  adapted  for  war 
like  purposes."  "The  cabinet,"  he  moreover  on 
another  occasion  stated,  "  were  of  opinion  that  the 
law  [thus  set  forth]  was  sufficient,  but  that  legal 
evidence  could  not  always  be  procured/'  Of  the 
sufficiency  of  that  evidence,  the  government,  acting 
through  its  legal  advisers,  was  the  sole  judge.  As 
such,  it  demanded  legal  proof  of  a  character  suf 
ficient  not  only  to  justify  an  indictment,  but  to  fur 
nish  reasonable  grounds  for  securing  a  conviction 
thereon.  The  imputation  and  strong  circumstances 
which  lead  directly  to  the  door  of  proof,  gave,  in 
this  case,  no  satisfaction.  Facts  of  unquestioned 
notoriety  could  not  be  adduced.  Notoriety  was 
not  evidence.*  A  petty  jury  in  an  English  criminal 
court  became  thus  the  final  arbiter  of  Britain's  in 
ternational  obligations.  If  that  august  tribunal 

*  Papers  Relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  vol.  iv,  pp.  377, 
479- 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    29 

pronounced  a  case  not  proven,  though  the  real 
facts  were  common  town  talk,  the  law  was  not 
violated,  and,  whatever  acts  of  maritime  wrong  and 
ocean  outrage  followed,  foreign  nations  had  no 
grounds  for  reclamation.  And  this  was  gravely 
pronounced  law;  "Ay,  marry;  crowner's  quest 
law  !  " 

Here,  indeed,  was  the  inherent,  fundamental  de 
fect  of  the  British  position, — what  afterwards  came 
to  being  described  as  the  "  insularity "  of  the 
British  contentions.  One  and  all, —  politicians, 
publicists,  jurists,  statesmen, — they  seemed  unable 
to  rise  above  the  conception  of  a  municipal  rule  of 
conduct.  Their  vision  was  bounded,  on  the  one 
side  by  a  jury  box,  and  on  the  other  by  the  benches 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  international  ob 
ligations  of  Great  Britain,  Earl  Russell  did  not 
cease  to  contend,  were  coterminous  with  the  mu 
nicipal  laws  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  if  those  laws 
did  not  provide  adequate  protection  for  the  rights 
and  properties  of  foreign  nations  it  was  most  un 
reasonable  for  the  representatives  of  those  nations 
to  present  claims  and  complaints  to  Her  Majesty's 
government.  Great  Britain  was  only  accountable 
in  so  far  as  her  own  laws  made  her  accountable. 
It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  say  that  this  rule  also 
is  one  which  in  its  converse  operation  might  not 
infrequently  lead  to  inopportune  results. 

The  Foreign  Enlistment  Act  of  1819  was  then 
passed  in  review.  It  was  pronounced  "  effectual 
for  all  reasonable  purposes,  and  to  the  full  extent 
to  which  international  law  and  comity  can  require." 
In  the  opinion  of  the  government,  there  was  no 
occasion  for  its  amendment  or  strengthening.  No 


30      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

move  was  made  to  that  end  ;  no  recommendation 
submitted  to  Parliament.  On  the  contrary,  when 
in  March,  1863,  the  neutrality*  laws  were  in  debate, 
Lord  Palmerston  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  from 
the  ministerial  benches,  if  the  cry  that  those  laws 
were  manifestly  defective  was  raised  "  for  the  pur 
pose  of  driving  Her  Majesty's  government  to  do 
something  which  may  be  derogatory  to  the  dignity 
of  the  country,  in  the  way  of  altering  our  laws  for 
the  purpose  of  pleasing  another  Government,  then 
all  I  can  say  is  that  such  a  course  is  not  likely  to 
accomplish  its  purpose  but  the  people 

and  Government  of  the  United  States  must  not 
imagine  that  any  cry  which  may  be  raised  will  in 
duce  us  to  come  down  to  this  House  with  a  pro 
posal  to  alter  the  law."  Thus  another  door  of 
future  possible  escape  was  on  this  occasion  closed 
by  the  British  Premier,  so  to  speak,  with  a  slam. 
The  law,  however  manifestly  defective,  was  not 
to  be  changed  to  please  anyone. 

Meanwhile,  as  if  to  make  the  record  at  all  points 
complete,  and  to  show  how  very  defective  this  im 
mutable  law  was,  the  Courts  passed  upon  the  much- 
discussed  Foreign  Enlistment  Act  of  1819.  Under 
the  pressure  brought  to  bear  by  the  United  States 
minister  a  test  case  had  been  arranged,  It  was 
tried  before  a  jury  in  the  Court  of  Exchequer  on 
the  22nd  of  June,  1863,  the  Laird  iron-clads  being 
then  still  on  the  ways,  but  in  an  advanced  stage  of 
construction.  The  vessel  thus  seized  and  proceeded 
against  in  order  to  obtain  a  construction  of  the  Act 
was  the  Alexandra.  This  vessel  was  being  built 
with  a  view  to  warlike  equipment.  Of  that,  no 
denial  was  possible.  That  she  was  intended  for 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    31 

use  in  the  Confederate  service  was  amoral  certainty. 
The  Alabama  was  at  that  time  in  its  full  career  of 
destruction, — burning,  sinking,  destroying.  Before 
her  ravages,  the  merchant  marine  of  the  United 
States  was  fast  disappearing, — the  ships  composing 
it  either  going  up  in  smoke,  or  being  transferred  to 
other  flags.  With  all  these  facts  admitted  or  of 
common  knowledge,  the  Lord  Chief  Baron  presid 
ing  at  the  Alexandra  trial  proceeded  to  instruct  the 
jury  on  the  law.  The  Foreign  Enlistment  Act  was, 
he  told  them,  not  designed  for  the  protection  of 
belligerent  powers,  or  to  prevent  Great  Britain 
being  made  the  base  of  naval  operations  directed 
against  nations  with  which  that  country  was  at 
peace.  The  purpose  of  the  statute  was  solely  to 
prevent  hostile  naval  encounters  within  British 
waters  ;  and,  to  that  end,  it  forbade  such  equipment 
of  the  completed  ship  as  would  make  possible  im 
mediate  hostile  operations,  it  might  be  "  before  they 
left  the  port/'  Such  things  had  happened;  "and 
that  has  been  the  occasion  of  this  statute."  He 
closed  with  these  words — "if  you  think  the  object 
was  to  build  a  ship  in  obedience  to  an  order,  and 
in  compliance  with  a  contract,  leaving  those  who 
bought  it  to  make  what  use  they  thought  fit  of  it, 
then  it  appears  to  me  the  Foreign  Enlistment  Act 
has  not  been  in  any  degree  broken." 

The  jury,  of  course,  under  such  an  interpretation 
of  the  statute,  rendered  a  verdict  for  the  defendants, 
and  that  verdict  the  audience  in  the  court-room  re 
ceived  with  an  outburst  of  applause.  This  outburst 
of  applause  was  significant  ;  more  significant  than 
even  the  charge  of  the  Judge.  Expressive  of  the 
feelings  of  the  British  people,  it  pointed  directly  to 


32      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

the  root  of  the  trouble.  The  trial  took  place  tow 
ards  the  close  of  June,  1863, — a  few  days  only  be 
fore  Gettysburg;  and,  at  that* time,  England,  so  far 
as  the  United  States  was  concerned,  had  reached  a 
state  of  mind  Elizabethan  rather  than  Victorian. 
The  buccaneering  blood, — the  blood  of  Drake,  of 
Cavendish,  and  of  Frobisher, — was  stirring  in  Brit 
ish  veins.  The  Alabama  then  stood  high  in  public 
admiration,- — a  British  built  ship,  manned  by  a  Brit 
ish  crew,  armed  with  British  guns,  it  was  success 
fully  eluding  the  "Yankee"  ships  of  war,  and  de 
stroying  a  rival  commercial  marine.  Wherever 
the  British  jurisdiction  extended  the  Alabama  was 
a  welcome  sojourner  from  the  weary  sea.  The  com 
pany  on  the  decks  of  British  mail  steamers  cheered 
her  to  the  echo  as  they  passed.  At  that  time,  so 
strong  among  the  influential  classes  of  Great  Britain 
was  the  feeling  of  sympathy  for  the  South,  and  so 
intense  was  the  emnity  to  the  Union,  mixed  with  a 
contempt  as  outspoken  as  it  was  ill-advised,  that 
those  sentiments  were  well-nigh  all-pervasive. 
Speaking  shortly  after  Richard  Cobden  said — "  I 
declare  to  you  that,  looking  at  what  is  called  in  a 
cant  phrase  in  London,  '  society '  ;  looking  at  so 
ciety — and  society,  I  must  tell  you,  means  the  upper 
ten  thousand,  with  whom  Members  of  Parliament 
are  liable  to  come  in  contact  at  the  clubs  and  else 
where  in  London  ;  looking  at  what  is  called  '  society  ' 
—looking  at  the  ruling  class,  if  we  may  use  the 
phrase,  that  meet  in  the  purlieus  of  London,  nine- 
teen-twentieths  of  them  were  firmly  convinced  from 
the  first  that  the  civil  war  in  America  could  only 
end  in  separation."  Captain  Bulloch  asserted 
twenty  years  later  that,  being  thrown  while  in  Eng- 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    33 

land  a  good  deal  among  Army  and  Navy  men  "I 
never  met  one  of  either  service  who  did  not  warmly 
sympathize  with  the  South  "  ;  *  and  he  further  ex 
pressed  his  belief  that  this  was  the  feeling  of  "  at 
least  five  out  of  every  seven  in  the  middle  and 
upper  classes."  t  To  the  like  effect,  Mr.  G.  W.  P. 
Bentinck, — a  member  of  Parliament, — declared  in  a 
speech  at  Kings  Lynn  in  October,  1862,  that,  as  far 
as  his  experience  went,  "  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  wherever  I  have  travelled,  I 
never  yet  have  met  the  man  who  has  not  at  once 
said — '  My  wishes  are  with  the  Southerners  '  "  ; 
and  he  went  on  to  add  that  this  feeling  was  mainly 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  Southerner  was  "  fighting 
against  one  of  the  most  grinding,  one  of  the  most 
galling,  one  of  the  most  irritating  attempts  to  estab 
lish  tyrannical  government  that  ever  disgraced  the 
history  of  the  world."  Mr.  Gladstone's  unfortunate 
utterance  at  about  the  same  time  passed  into  his 
tory  ;  from  which  it  failed  not  afterwards  to  return 
sorely  to  plague  him.  "  We  may  anticipate  with 
certainty  the  success  of  the  Southern  States  so  far 
as  regards  their  separation  from  the  North. 
That  event  is  as  certain  as  any  event  yet  future  and 
contingent  can  be  ;  "  and  again,  ten  months  later, 
he  said  in  Parliament, — "  We  do  not  believe  that  the 
restoration  of  the  American  Union  by  force  is  attain 
able.  I  believe  that  the  public  opinion  of  this  country 
is  unanimous  upon  that  subject.  *  *  *  I  do  not 
think  there  is  any  real  or  serious  ground  for  doubt 
as  to  the  issue  of  this  contest."  Four  months  pre 
vious,  Mr.  Gladstone's  associate  in  the  cabinet,  Earl 
Russell,  had  lent  emphasis  to  this  opinion  by  de- 

*  Bulloch,  vol.  ii,  p.  308.  \  Ibid. ,  i,  294. 


34      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

claring  in  the  House  of  Lords — "  There  may  be  one 
end  of  the  war  that  would  prove  a  calamity  to  the 
United  States  and  to  the  world,  and  especially  ca 
lamitous  to  the  negro  race  in  those  countries,  and 
that  would  be  the  subjugation  of  the  South  by  the 
North."  With  this  idea  that  there  could  be  but 
one  outcome  of  the  struggle  firmly  established  in 
their  minds,  influential  members  of  the  Cabinet  did 
not  urge  recognition  simply  because,  in  view  of  the 
certainty  of  the  result,  they  deemed  such  action 
unnecessary  and  impolitic.*  The  whole  British 
policy  during  the  Civil  War  was  shaped  with  a  view 
to  this  future  state  of  affairs,  and  the  creation  of  bad 
precedents  was  ignored  accordingly.  The  Union 
was  to  be  divided  into  two  republics,  unfriendly  to 
each  other.  There  was  to  be  one  democratic,  free- 
labor  republic,  or  more  probably  two  such,  lying 
between  the  British  possessions  on  the  North,  and 
a  slave-labor,  cotton-growing  republic  on  the  South  ; 
the  latter,  almost  of  necessity,  acting  in  close  har 
mony  of  interest,  commercial  and  political,  with 
Great  Britain.  For  Great  Britain  eternity  itself  had 
thus  no  day  of  reckoning. 

Relying  on  this  simple  faith  in  a  certain  future,— 
this  absolute  confidence  that  the  expected  only  could 
occur, — utterances  like  the  following  appeared  in 
the  editorial  columns  of  the  Morning  Post,  the  Lon 
don  journal  understood  most  closely  to  reflect  the 
opinions  of  the  Prime  Minister.  "  From  the  ruling 
of  the  judge  [in  the  case  of  the  Alexandra^  it  ap 
peared  that  the  Confederate  Government  might  with 
ease  obtain  as  many  vessels  in  this  country  as  they 
pleased  without  in  any  manner  violating  our  laws. 

*  Bulloch,  vol.  ii,  p.  5. 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    35 

It  may  be  a  great  hardship  to  the  Federals  that 
their  opponents  should  be  enabled  to  create  a  navy 
in  foreign  ports,  but,  like  many  other  hardships  en 
tailed  on  belligerents,  it  must  be  submitted  to  ;  "  * 
while,  five  months  before  this  same  organ  of 
"  society  "  and  the  "  influential  classes  "  had  reached 
the  comfortable  conclusion  that,  so  far  as  the  Ala 
bama  was  concerned,  the  fact  "  she  sails  upon  the 
ocean  is  one  of  those  chances  of  war  to  which  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  ought  with  dignity 
and  resignation  to  submit." 


II 

Fortunately  for  maritime  law,  fortunately  for  itself, 
the  British  Government  paused  at  this  point.  The 
"  Laird  rams,"  as  they  were  now  known,  presented  a 
test  case.  London  "  society  "  and  the  irresponsible 
press  of  Great  Britain  might,  like  the  audience  in 
the  Court  of  Exchequer,  applaud  the  charge  of  the 
Lord  Chief  Baron,  and  gladly  accept  the  law  he  laid 
down  that  it  was  legal  for  a  belligerent  to  create  a 
navy  in  a  neutral  port.  This  was  actually  beingdone. 
Theretofore  the  cases  had  been  those  of  individual 
commerce-destroyers  only.  Now,  an  armament  was  in 
course  of  construction  in  a  British  port  intended  for  a 
naval  operation  of  magnitude  against  a  foreign  bel 
ligerent  with  which  Great  Britain  was  at  peace.  The 
vessels,  moreover,  were  equipped  with  weapons  of 
offensive  warfare — their  beaks.  Their  purpose  and 
destination  could  not  be  proven  in  any  legal  pro 
ceedings  ;  but,  known  of  all  men,  they  were  hardly 

*  Morning  Post,  March  14,  August  10,  1863. 


36      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

concealed  by  fraudulent  bills  of  sale.  The  law  as 
laid  down  by  the  Lord  Chief  Baron  in  the  case  of 
the  Alexandra  might,  therefore,  as  "  crowner's  quest 
law  "  be  of  the  very  first  class  ;  but,  for  Her  Maj 
esty's  government  such  a  construction  of  the  law,— 
an  act  in  the  Statute-book  of  Great  Britain, — ob 
viously  involved  serious  consequences.  Were  they 
prepared  to  go  to  the  journey's  end  on  the  road 
thus  pointed  out?  To  what  might  it  lead?  To 
what  might  it  not  lead  ? 

Into  the  causes  of  the  change  of  policy  which  now 
took  place  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter. 
The  law  was  expounded  in  the  Alexandra  case  on 
the  22nd  of  June,  1863;  Vicksburg  surrendered, 
and  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  fought,  on  the  3rd 
and  4th  of  the  following  July  ;  three  months  later, 
on  the  Qth  of  October,  the  detention  of  the  Laird 
iron-clads  was  ordered.  After  the  rulings  of  the 
court  in  the  Alexandra  case,  there  can  be  no  ques 
tion  that  the  law  was  "  strained "  to  effect  this 
seizure.*  There  can  be  equally  little  question  that 
the  detention  of  the  iron-clads  was  a  surprise  to 
the  American  minister  then  representing  the  coun 
try  in  London.  It  marked  also  a  radical  change 
in  the  policy  pursued  by  the  Palmerston-Russell 
ministry.  Earl  Russell  apparently  now  first  real 
ized  the  fact  he  afterwards  announced  in  Parlia 
ment,  "  that  in  this  conflict  the  Confederate  States 
have  no  ports,  except  those  of  the  Mersey  and  the 
Clyde,  from  which  to  fit  out  ships  to  cruise  against 

*  The  seizure  was  severely  criticised  in  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
and,  on  a  division — nominally  for  papers,  but  really  amounting  to  a 
vote  of  censure — Earl  Russell's  conduct  in  stopping  the  Laird  rams 
was  approved  by  a  comparatively  small  majority.  Speech  of  Attorney  - 
General  in  House  of  Commons,  August  i,  1870. 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    37 

the  Federals  "  ;  and  it  seems  to  have  dawned  upon 
him  that,  in  the  case  of  future  hostilities,  other  nations 
besides  Great  Britain  had  ports,  and,  in  certain  not 
impossible  contingencies,  those  ports  might  become 
bases, — perhaps  inconvenient  bases, — of  maritime 
warfare,  as  were  now  those  of  the  Mersey  and  the 
Clyde.  It  was  a  thing  much  to  be  deplored  that 
rules  did  work  both  ways,  and  that  curses,  like 
chickens,  would  come  home  to  roost ;  but,  this  being 
so,  it  behooved  prudent  statesmen  to  give  a  certain 
degree  of  consideration  to  the  precedents  they  were 
creating. 

Whether  Earl  Russell  reasoned  in  this  wise  or 
not,  certain  it  is  that  after  September,  1863,  Great 
Britain  ceased  to  be  available  as  a  base  of  Confed 
erate  naval  operations.  The  moment  it  felt  so  dis 
posed,  Her  Majesty's  Government  found  means  to 
cause  the  neutrality  of  Great  Britain  to  be  respected  ; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  rulings  of  the  courts,  the  For 
eign  Enlistment  Act  proved  something  more  than 
a  "purely  nominal"  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  bellig 
erent  in  search  of  a  base  of  maritime  warfare.  My 
own  belief,  derived  from  a  tolerably  thorough  study 
of  the  period,  is  that  numerous  causes  contributed 
to  bringing  that  change  about.  Among  the  more 
potent  of  these  I  should  enumerate  the  stirring  of 
the  British  conscience  which  followed  the  Emanci 
pation  Proclamation  of  September,  1862;  the  convic 
tion,  already  referred  to,  that  any  decisive  action  on 
the  part  of  Great  Britain  was  unnecessary  as  well 
as  impolitic,  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Confederacy 
being  a  foregone  conclusion ;  the  troubled  state  of 
affairs  on  the  continent  as  respects  both  Poland  and 
Denmark  ;  and,  above  all,  the  honest  anger  of  Earl 


38      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

Russell  at  the  consequences  which  had  ensued  from 
the  evasion  of  the  Alabama.  The  precedent  he 
had  himself  helped  to  create*  startled  him,— he  re 
coiled  in  presence  of  its  logical  consequences  ;  and, 
in  view  of  the  complications  then  existing  on  the 
continent,  or  there  in  obvious  process  of  develop 
ment,  the  great  financial  and  commercial  interests  of 
Great  Britain  showed  signs  of  awakening.  Omi 
nous  queries  were  shortly  propounded  ;  and,  on  the 
evening  of  the  ijth  of  May,  1864,  the  head  of  the 
great  house  of  Barings  fairly  startled  the  country 
by  rising  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  suggesting 
certain  queries  to  the  government, — queries,  now, 
thirty-seven  years  later,  of  much  significance  in  con 
nection  with  events  in  South  Africa; — "  I  am,"  Mr. 
Baring  said,  "  desirous  of  inviting  the  attention  of 
the  House  to  the  situation  in  which  this  country 
will  be  if  the  precedents  now  established  are  acted 
upon  in  the  event  of  our  being  involved  in  war, 
while  other  States  are  neutral.  Under  the  present 
construction  of  our  municipal  law  there  is  no  neces 
sity  that  a  belligerent  should  have  a  port,  or  even 
a  seashore.  Provided  she  has  money,  or  that 
money  is  supplied  to  her  by  a  neutral,  she  may  fit 
out  vessels,  and  those  vessels  need  not  go  to  the 
country  to  which  they  are  said  to  belong,  but  may 
go  about  the  seas  dealing  destruction  to  British 
shipping  and  property.  Take  the  case,  which  I 
hope  we  shall  avoid,  of  our  being  at  war  with  Ger 
many.  There  would,  as  things  now  stand,  be  noth 
ing  to  prevent  the  Diet  of  Frankfort  from  having  a 
fleet.  A  number  of  the  small  States  of  Germany 
might  unite  together,  and  become  a  great  naval 
power.  Money  is  all  that  is  required  for  the  pur- 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    39 

pose,  and  Saxony,  without  a  seashore,  might  have 
a  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  without  any  docks, 
who  might  have  a  large  fleet  at  his  disposal  The 
only  answer  we  could  make  under  those  circum 
stances  to  France  and  the  United  States,  who  as 
neutrals  might  fit  out  vessels  against  us  on  the  pre 
tence  that  they  were  German  cruisers,  was  that  we 
would  go  to  \var  with  them  ;  so  that  by  the  course 
of  policy  which  we  are  pursuing  we  render  our 
selves  liable  to  the  alternative  of  having  our  property 
completely  destroyed,  or  entering  into  a  contest 
with  every  neutral  Power  in  the  world.  We  ought, 
under  these  circumstances,  to  ask  ourselves  what 
we  have  at  stake.  I  will  not  trouble  the  House 
with  statistics  on  the  point,  but  we  all  know  that  our 
commerce  is  to  be  found  extending  itself  to  every 
sea,  that  our  vessels  float  in  the  waters  of  every 
clime,  that  even  with  our  cruisers  afloat  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  pick  up  an  Alabama,  and  that  the 
destruction  of  our  property  might  go  on  despite  all 
our  powers  and  resources.  What  would  be  the  re 
sult  ?  That  we  must  submit  to  the  destruction  of 
our  property,  or  that  our  shipping  interests  must 
withdraw  their  ships  from  the  ocean.  That  is  a 
danger,  the  apprehension  of  which  is  not  confined 
to  myself,  but  is  shared  by  many  who  are  far  better 
able  to  form  a  judgment  than  I  am.  Recollect  that 
your  shipping  is  nearly  twice  at  large  as  that  of  the 
United  States.  If  you  follow  the  principle  you  are 
now  adopting  as  regards  the  United  States,  you 
must  be  prepared  to  stand  the  consequences.  So 
strongly  was  this  felt  by  ship-owners  that  memorials 
have  already  been  addressed  to  the  government 
upon  the  subject.  *  *  *  Last  night  the  hon. 


4O      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

Member  for  Liverpool  presented  a  petition,  signed 
by  almost  all  the  great  ship-owners  of  that  place, 
enforcing  the  same  view  and- expressing  the  same 
anxiety.  I  am  a  little  surprised  at  this  manifestation, 
because  what  is  happening  around  us  is  a  source  of 
great  profit  to  our  ship-owners ;  but  it  is  a  proof  that 
they  are  sensible  that  the  future  danger  will  far  pre 
ponderate  over  the  present  benefit  and  advantages." 

When  too  late,  it  thus  dawned  even  on  the  ship 
builders  of  the  Mersey  that,  for  a  great  commercial 
people,  confederacy  with  corsairs  might  be  a  danger 
ous,  even  if  not,  in  their  eyes,  a  discreditable  voca 
tion.  Firms  openly  dealing  in  burglars'  tools  are 
not  regarded  as  reputable. 

But  one  way  of  escape  from  their  own  precedents 
might  yet  remain.  It  had  always  been  the  conten 
tion  of  Mr.  Charles  Sumner  that  a  neutral-built 
ship-of-war  could  not  be  commissioned  by  a  bellig 
erent  on  the  high  seas.  It  was  and  remained  a 
pirate, — the  common  enemy  of  mankind, — until  its 
arrival  at  a  port  of  the  belligerent  to  which  it  be 
longed,  where  alone  it  could  be  fitted  out  and  com 
missioned  as  a  ship-of-war.*  As  any  port  will  do 
in  a  storm,  and  drowning  men  proverbially  clutch  at 
straws,  it  is  possible  to  imagine  a  British  ship 
owner,  as  he  foresaw  in  vision  the  Transvaal  and 
the  Orange  Free  State  involved  in  a  war  with  Great 
Britain,  appropriating  this  contention,  and  trying  to 
incorporate  it  into  the  International  Code.  He 
would  then  have  proceeded  to  argue  somewhat  as 
follows  : — "  Mr.  Baring  was  a  banker,  not  a  publi 
cist.  As  a  publicist  he  was  wrong.  A  non-mari 
time  nation  cannot  be  a  maritime  belligerent,"  &c., 

*  Works,  vii,  358  ;  Pierce's  Sumner t  vol.  iv,  p,  394. 


American  Civil    War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    41 

&c.  But,  during  the  course  of  our  Civil  War,  the 
British  authorities,  legal  and  political,  seemed  to 
take  pleasure  in  shutting  against  themselves  every 
possible  outlet  of  future  escape.  So,  in  this  case, 
referring  to  the  contention  of  Mr.  Sumner,  the  At 
torney-General,  speaking  after  Mr.  Baring,  ex 
pressed  himself  as  follows  : — "  To  say  that  a  country 
whose  ports  are  blockaded  is  not  at  liberty  to  avail 
herself  of  all  the  resources  which  may  be  at  her 
command  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  that  she  can 
not  buy  ships  in  neutral  territory  and  commission 
them  as  ships  of  war  without  bringing  them  to  her 
own  country  first,  is  a  doctrine  which  is  quite  pre 
posterous,  and  all  the  arguments  founded  upon 
such  a  doctrine  only  tend  to  throw  dust  into  men's 
eyes  and  to  mislead  them/' 

The  morning  following  this  significant  debate  the 
tone  of  Lord  Palmerston's  London  organ  under 
went  a  significant  change.  Grant  and  Lee  were 
that  day  confronting  each  other  in  the  Wilderness, 
resting  for  a  brief  space  after  the  fearful  wrestle  of 
Spotsylvania ;  in  London,  the  conference  over  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  struggle  was  in  session,  and 
the  feelings  of  Great  Britain  were  deeply  enlisted 
on  behalf  of  Denmark,  borne  down  by  the  united 
weight  of  Prussia  and  Austria.  So,  in  view  of  im 
mediate  possible  hostilities,  the  Post  now  exclaimed 
— "  We  are  essentially  a  maritime  power,  and  are 
bound  by  every  motive  of  self-interest  to  watch 
with  jealousy  the  observance  of  neutral  maritime 
obligations.  We  may  be  at  war  [South  Africa  !] 
ourselves ;  we  have  a  future  to  which  to  look  for 
ward,  and  we  must  keep  in  mind  the  precept  which 
inculcates  the  necessity  of  doing  to  others  as  we 


42      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

would  be  done  by.  *  *  *  War  is  no  longer  con 
sidered  by  the  commercial  classes  an  impossibility; 
and  the  ship-owners  of  Liverpool  are  considering 
what  is  to  become  of  their  property  should  we  un 
happily  become  involved  in  war,  and  innumerable 
Alabama*  issue  from  neutral  [American  !]  ports  to 
prey  upon  British  commerce  throughout  the  world. 
Suppose  that  circumstances  obliged  us  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  Denmark  against  her  ruthless  enemies, 
would  not  the  German  States  hasten  to  follow  the 
bad  example  set  them  by  the  Confederates,  and  at 
which  the  inefficiency  of  our  law  obliges  us  to  con 
nive  ?  "  And  the  London  organ  of  "  society  "  and 
the  "influential  classes"  then  added  this  sentence 
which,  under  certain  conditions  actually  existing 
thirty-five  years  later  would  have  been  of  very  preg 
nant  significance — "  Some  petty  principality  which 
boasts  of  a  standing  army  of  five  hundred  men,  but 
not  of  a  single  foot  of  sea-coast  [e.g.  the  Trans 
vaal,  the  Orange  Free  State]  might  fit  out  cruisers 
in  neutral  [e.g.  American]  ports  to  burn,  sink  and 
destroy  the  commerce  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  the 
enormous  amount  of  damage  which  may  be  done  in 
a  very  short  time,  even  by  a  single  vessel,  we  know 
from  the  history  of  the  Alabama."  * 

Thus  when  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  closed  the 
Trans-Atlantic  outlook  was,  for  Great  Britain,  omi 
nous  in  the  extreme.  Just  that  had  come  about 
which  English  public  men  and  British  newspapers 
had  wearied  themselves  with  asseverating  could 
not  possibly  happen.  The  Times  and  Morning 
Post  especially  had  loaded  the  record  with  predic 
tions,  every  one  of  which  the  event  falsified ;  and, 

*  The  Post,  May  14  and  18,  1864. 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   43 

in  doing  so,  they  had  gone  out  of  their  way  to 
generate  bitter  ill-feeling  by  the  arrogant  expres 
sion  of  a  contemptuous  dislike  peculiarly  British 
and  offensive.  For  example,  the  Times,  "  well 
aware  that  its  articles  weigh  in  America  more 
heavily  than  despatches  "  first  referred  to  us  as 
"this  insensate  and  degenerate  people,"  and  then 
proceeded  to  denounce  "  this  hateful  and  atrocious 
war  *  *  *  this  horrible  war,"  which  it  declared 
was  of  such  a  character  that  its  defenders  could  not 
find  in  all  Europe  a  single  society  where  they  could 
make  themselves  heard. *  In  the  same  common 
temper,  the  Standard,  reviewing  the  results  of  the 
conflict  on  the  very  day  that  Vicksburg,  unknown 
to  it,  had  surrendered,  declared  — "  We  have 
learned  to  dislike  and  almost  to  despise  the  North ; 
to  sympathize  with,  and  cordially  to  admire,  the 
South.  We  have  learnt  that  the  South  is,  on  the 
whole,  in  the  right ;  that  the  North  is  altogether, 
wilfully  and  wickedly  in  the  wrong."  But  these 
expressions  of  comfortable  contempt  were  not  con 
fined  to  the  London  press.  Liverpool,  for  instance, 
was  conspicuous  as  a  hot-bed  of  Confederate 
sympathy;  and,  as  early  as  August,  1861,  the 
leading  journal  of  that  city  expressed  itself  as  fol 
lows — "  We  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  vast 
majority  of  the  people  of  this  country,  certainly 
of  the  people  of  Liverpool,  are  in  favor  of  the 
cause  espoused  by  the  Secessionists.  The  defeat 
of  the  Federalists  gives  unmixed  pleasure ;  the 
success  of  the  Confederates  is  ardently  hoped,  nay, 
confidently  predicted."  A  year  later,  the  London 
Post  referred  in  the  same  tone  to  those  whom  it 

*  July  9,  12,  1862. 


44      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

saw  fit,  in  its  own  great  wisdom,  to  describe  as 
"  the  infatuated  people  across  the  Atlantic  "  — "  The 
whole  history  of  the  war  is  a  history  of  mistakes  on 
the  Federal  side.  Blinded  by  self-conceit,  influ 
enced  by  passion,  reckless  of  the  lessons  of  history, 
and  deaf  of  warnings  which  every  one  else  could 
hear  and  tremble  at,  the  people  of  the  North 
plunged  into  hostilities  with  their  fellow-citizens 
without  so  much  as  a  definite  idea  what  they  were 
fighting  for,  or  on  what  condition  they  would  cease 
fighting.  They  went  to  war  without  a  cause,  they 
have  fought  without  a  plan,  and  they  are  prosecut 
ing  it  still  without  a  principle."  It  would  then 
pleasantly  'refer  to  the  ''suicidal  frenzy"  of  a  con 
test  in  which  two  sections  were  striving  "  with  a 

o 

ferocity  unknown  since  the  times  when  Indian 
scalped  Indian  on  the  same  continent";  and  sor 
rowfully  added — "  American  pride  contemptuously 
disdains  to  consider  what  may  be  thought  of  its 
proceedings  by  the  intelligent  in  this  country ;  in 
flated  self-sufficiency  scorns  alike  the  friendly  advice 
of  the  disinterested  and  the  indignant  censures  of  a 
disapproving  world."  And  then,  finally,  when  its 
every  prevision  had  proved  wrong  and  all  its  pre 
dictions  were  falsified,  as  it  contemplated  the  total 
collapse  of  the  Confederacy,  this  organ  of  "  society  " 
and  the  "  influential  classes  "  innocently  observed— 
'  The  antipathy  entertained  by  the  United  States 
toward  England  has,  owing  to  circumstances  en 
tirely  beyond  our  control,  and  into  which  it  is  un 
necessary  now  to  enter,  been  fanned  into  a  fiercer 
flame  during  the  progress  of  the  war;  "  and  it  now 
referred  to  Great  Britain  as  "  the  mother  country."  * 

*May  15,  1865. 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    45 

Recorded  utterances  of  this  character  could  be 
multiplied  indefinitely  ;  I  take  these  few,  selected 
at  random,  merely  to  illustrate  the  extreme  diffi 
culty  of  the  position  into  which  the  precedents  and 
declarations  she  herself  had  established  and  put 
freely  on  record  brought  Great  Britain  at  the  close 
of  our  Civil  War.  It  is  useless  to  say  that,  as  be 
tween  nations,  irresponsible  utterances  through  the 
press  and  from  the  platform  are  not  entitled  to  con 
sideration,  and  should  not  be  recalled.  They,  none 
the  less,  are  a  fact ;  and  they  are  not  forgotten. 
On  the  contrary,  they  rankle.  They  did  so  in  1865. 

Happily,  however,  for  the  peace  of  the  world,  a 
few  great  facts  then  stood  forth,  established,  and  of 
record  ;  and  it  is  these  prominent  facts  which  influ 
ence  popular  feeling.  English  built  ships, — English- 
manned  and  English-armed, — had  swept  the  Amer 
ican  merchant  marine  from  the  seas ;  but,  most 
fortunately,  an  American  man-of-war  of  not  unequal 
size  had,  within  sight  of  English  shores,  sent  to  the 
bottom  of  the  British  channel  the  single  one  of 
those  commerce-destroyers  which  had  trusted  itself 
within  reach  of  our  guns.  In  this  there  was  much 
balm.  Again,  America  was  weary  of  strife,  and 
longed  for  rest ;  and  it  could  well  afford  to  bide  its 
time  in  view  of  the  changed  tone  and  apprehensive 
glances  which  now  came  across  the  Atlantic  from 
those  whose  forecast  had  deceived  them  into  a  po 
sition  so  obviously  false.  In  common  parlance, 
Great  Britain  had  made  her  bed ;  she  might  now 
safely  be  left  to  a  prolonged  nightmare  as  she  lay 
in  it.  The  United  States, — no  longer  an  "  insen 
sate  and  degenerate  people  "  —could  well  afford  to 
wait.  Its  time  was  sure  to  come. 


46      Before  and  After  the  Treaty  of  Washington  : 

Great  Britain,  also,  was  most  uncomfortably  of 
this  same  opinion.  The  more  ner  public  men  re 
flected  on  the  positions  taken  by  the  Palmerston- 
Russell  ministry,  and  the  precedents  therein  created, 
the  worse  they  seemed,  and  the  less  propitious  the 
outlook.  The  reckoning  was  long ;  and  it  was 
chalked  plainly  on  the  wall.  It  was  never  lost  to 
sight  or  out  of  mind.  The  tendency  of  events  was 
obvious.  They  all  pointed  to  retaliation  in  kind ; 
for,  in  the  Summer  of  1866  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  at  Washington  passed,  without  one  dis 
senting  vote,  a  bill  to  repeal  the  inhibitions  on  the 
American  neutrality  laws  against  the  fitting  out  of 
ships  for  belligerents.  The  threat  was  overt ;  Great 
Britain  deprecatingly  met  it  by  the  passage,  in  1 870, 
of  a  new  and  stringent  Foreign  Enlistment  Act. 

Just  six  years  elapsed  between  the  close  of  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion  (May,  1864)  and  the  signing 
of  the  Treaty  of  Washington  (May,  1871).  For 
Great  Britain  those  were  years  of  rapid  education 
toward  a  new  code  of  international  law.  Consider 
ing  the  interval  traversed,  the  time  of  traversing  it 
cannot  be  said  to  have  been  long.  When,  in  the 
midst  of  the  Civil  War,  tidings  of  the  depredations 
of  the  British-built  Confederate  commerce-destroy 
ers  reached  America,  instructions  were  sent  to  the 
Minister  of  the  United  States  in  London  to  demand 
reparation.  To  this  demand  Earl  Russell,  then 
Foreign  Secretary,  in  due  time  responded.  Not 
only  did  he  deny  any  liability,  legal  or  moral,  but 
he  concluded  his  reply  with  this  highly  significant, 
not  to  say  petulant,  remark,—"  I  have  only,  in  con 
clusion,  to  express  my  hope  that  you  may  not  be 
instructed  again  to  put  forward  claims  which  Her 


American  Civil    War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    47 

Majesty's  government  cannot  admit  to  be  founded 
on  any  grounds  of  law  and  justice."  * 

The  discussion  seemed  closed  ;  Great  Britain 
had  apparently  taken  her  stand.  In  the  words  ot 
the  Foreign  Secretary — "  Her  Majesty's  govern 
ment  entirely  disclaim  all  responsibility  for  any  acts 
of  the  Alabama!'  This  was  in  March,  1863.  On 
the  i  Qth  of  June,  1864,  the  depredations  of  the  Ala 
bama  were  brought  to  a  summary  close.  When 
the  Confederate  Secretary  of  War,  at  Richmond, 
heard  of  the  loss  thus  sustained,  he  wrote  immedi 
ately  (July  1 8th)  to  the  Liverpool  bureau  of  his  de 
partment — "  You  must  supply  her  place  if  possible, 
a  measure  [now]  of  paramount  importance  "  t  This 
despatch  reached  its  destination  on  the  3Oth  of  Au 
gust,  and  on  the  2Oth  of  October  the  head  of  the 
bureau  had  "  the  great  satisfaction  of  reporting  the 
safe  departure  on  the  8th  inst."  of  the  Sheiiandoah, 
from  London,  and  its  consort,  the  Laurel,  from 
Liverpool,  "  within  a  few  hours  of  each  other  "  ; 
and  this  in  spite  of  "  embarrassing  and  annoying 
inquiries  from  the  Customs  and  Board  of  Trade 
officials."  The  Shenandoah  now  took  up  the  work 
of  destruction  which  the  Alabama  was  no  longer 
in  position  to  continue.  It  thus  devolved  on  the 
American  minister  to  present  further  demands 
on  the  Foreign  Secretary.  But  the  situation  was 
now  materially  changed.  Earl  Russell  had  ab 
ruptly  closed  the  correspondence  over  the  dep 
redations  of  the  Alabama  seven  weeks  before  the 
unfortunate  battle  of  Chancellorsville  ;  Lee  sur 
rendered  at  Appomattox  just  two  days  after  Mr. 
Adams  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Foreign  Secre- 

*Dip.  Cor.,  1863,  380.  f  Bulloch,  vol.  ii,  p.  112. 


48      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington: 

tary  the  depredations  of  the  Shenandoah.  A  long 
correspondence  ensued,  which  was  closed  on  the 
2d  of  the  following  December  by  Lord  Clarendon, 
Earl  Russell's  successor  as  Foreign  Secretary.  His 
despatch  was  brief;  but  in  it  he  observed  "that  no 
armed  vessel  departed  during  the  war  from  a  Brit 
ish  port  to  cruise  against  the  commerce  of  the 
United  States  "  ;  and  he  further  maintained  that 
throughout  the  war  "the  British  government  have 
steadily  and  honestly  discharged  all  the  duties  in 
cumbent  on  them  as  a  neutral  power,  and  have 
never  deviated  from  the  obligations  imposed  on 
them  by  international  law."  And  yet  in  this  corre 
spondence  the  first  step  in  the  direction  of  a  settle 
ment  was  taken, — a  step  curiously  characteristic  of 
Earl  Russell.  As  indicative  also  of  the  amount  of 
progress  yet  made  on  the  long  road  to  be  traversed, 
it  was  the  reverse  of  encouraging.  Earl  Russell 
had  got  Great  Britain  into  a  position  from  which 
she  had  in  some  way  to  be  extricated.  The  events 
of  April  and  May,  1865,  in  America  were  very  sig 
nificant  when  viewed  in  their  bearing  on  the  fast 
rising  European  complications  incident  to  the  blood- 
and-iron  policy  to  which  Count  Bismarck  was  delib 
erately  giving  shape.  Dark  clouds,  ominous  of 
coming  storm,  were  hanging  on  the  European  hori 
zon  ;  while  America,  powerful  and  at  peace,  low 
ered  angrily  British-ward  from  across  the  Atlantic. 
It  was  a  continuous,  ever-present  menace,  to  be 
averted  only  when  approached  in  a  large  way. 
One  course,  and  but  one  course,  was  now  open  to 
the  Briiish  statesman.  To  see  and  follow  it  called 
for  an  eye  and  mind  and  pen  very  different,  and  far 
more  quick  and  facile,  than  the  eye,  mind  and  pen 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  tJie   Transvaal.    49 

with  which  nature  had  seen  fit  to  endow  the  younger 
scion  of  the  ducal  house  of  Bedford. 

Had  he  been  equal  to  the  situation,  it  was  then 
in  the  power  of  Earl  Russell  to  extricate  Great  Brit 
ain  from  the  position  into  which  he  had  brought 
her,  and  out  of  the  nettle,  danger,  to  pluck  the 
flower,  safety.  Nor  would  it  have  been  difficult  so 
to  do,  and  that  without  the  abandonment  of  any  po 
sition  he  had  taken.  Satiated  with  battle  and  sat 
isfied  with  success,  America  was  then  in  complaisant 
mood.  A  complete  victor  is  always  inclined  to  be 
magnanimous,  and  that  was  a  time  when,  as  Mr. 
Sumner  afterwards  expressed  it,  "' we  would  have 
accepted  very  little."  Taking  advantage  of  this 
national  mental  mood,  it  would  have  been  possi 
ble  for  Earl  Russell  then,  while  extricating  Great 
Britain  from  a  false  position,  to  have  at  once  oblit 
erated  the  recollection  of  the  past  and  forestalled 
the  Treaty  of  Washington,  securing  at  the  same 
time  the  adoption  at  little  cost  of  a  new  principle  of 
international  law  obviously  in  the  interest  of  Great 
Britain.  Still  insisting  in  his  correspondence  with 
the  American  minister  that  Her  Majesty's  govern 
ment  had,  in  the  language  of  his  successor,  "  stead 
ily  and  honestly  discharged  all  the  duties  incumbent 
on  them  as  a  neutral  power,"  and  hence  had  in 
curred  no  liability  under  any  recognized  principle  or 
precedent  of  international  law  for  depredations  com 
mitted  by  Her  Majesty's  subjects  beyond  her  juris 
diction, — adhering  firmly  to  this  contention,  he 
might  have  gone  on  to  recognize  in  the  light  of  a 
record  which  he  had  already  admitted  was  a  "  scan 
dal"  and  "a  reproach  to  our  laws,"  that  a  radical 

*  Pierce's  Sumner,  vol.  iv,  p.  384. 


5O      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

change  in  the  international  code  was  obviously  de 
sirable,  and  that  the  time  for  it  had  come.  The 
neutral  should  be  responsible*for  results  whenever, 
after  due  notice  of  a  contemplated  infraction  was 
given  (as  in  the  cases  of  the  Florida  and  Alabama), 
she  permitted  her  territory  to  be  made  by  one  bel 
ligerent  the  base  of  operations  against  another. 
The  laws  ought,  he  would  have  admitted,  to  be  ad 
equate  to  such  an  emergency ;  and  they  should  be 
enforced.  He  might  well  then  have  expressed  the 
honest  regret  Great  Britain  felt  that  her  laws  had 
during  our  Rebellion  proved  inadequate,  and  a 
proper  sense  of  the  grievous  injury  the  United 
States  had  in  consequence  sustained.  The  rest  of 
the  way  out  would  then  have  been  plain  to  him.  In 
view  of  Great  Britain's  commercial  and  maritime  in 
terests,  she  could  well  afford  to  incur  large  pecuni 
ary  sacrifices  to  secure  the  future  protection  in 
volved  in  the  change  of  international  law  contended 
for  by  the  American  government.  She  could  not 
ask  that  protection  for  the  future  with  no  regard  to 
the  past,  That  Great  Britain  had  incurred  to  a  cer 
tain  extent  a  moral  obligation  through  the  insuf 
ficiency  of  her  statutes,  combined  with  the  unsatis 
factory  state  of  international  law,  could  not  be  denied 
in  view  of  the  admission  already  made  that  the 
cases  of  the  Confederate  commerce-destroyers  were 
a  "  scandal  "  and  a  "reproach."  Under  these  cir 
cumstances  Great  Britain  was  prepared  to  assent  to 
the  modifications  of  international  law  now  contended 
for  by  the  United  States  ;  and,  to  secure  the  mani 
fest  future  advantage  involved  in  their  adoption, 
would  agree,  subject  to  reasonable  limitations  as  to 
extent  of  liability,  &c.,  to  have  those  principles  op- 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    51 

erate  retrospectively  in  the  case  of  such  Confed 
erate  commerce-destroyers  as  had,  after  notice 
given,  sailed  from  British  ports  of  origin  during  the 
Civil  War. 

In  the  light  of  what  afterwards  occurred,  including 
the  Treaty  of  Washington  and  the  results  of  the 
Geneva  Arbitration,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the 
astonishment  with  which  the  American  Minister 
would  have  read  a  despatch  couched  in  these  terms, 
and  the  gratification  with  which  the  American  peo 
ple  would  have  hailed  it.  It  would  have  been,  in 
the  reverse,  a  repetition  of  the  Trent  experience. 
The  clouds  would  all  have  rolled  away.  While  the 
national  pride  of  Great  Britain  would  have  suffered 
no  hurt,  that  of  the  United  States  would  have  been 
immensely  flattered.  The  one  country  would  have 
got  itself  gracefully,  and  cheaply,  out  of  an  impossible 
position.  It  would  have  secured  an  advantage  of 
inestimable  future  value  at  a  cost  in  reality  nominal, 
and  a  cost  which  it  afterwards  had  to  pay;  the  other 
party  would  have  achieved  a  great  diplomatic  vic 
tory,  crowning  and  happily  rounding  out  its  mili 
tary  successes.  Most  unfortunately,  as  the  result 
showed,  Earl  Russell  did  not  have  it  in  him  thus  to 
rise  to  the  occasion.  On  the  contrary,  with  that 
curious,  conventional  conservatism  which  seems  in 
nate  in  a  certain  class  of  English  public  men, — an 
inability  to  recognize  their  own  interests  if  pre 
sented  in  unaccustomed  form, — the  British  Foreign 
Secretary  now  declined  to  consider  those  very 
changes  in  the  law  which  Parliament  five  years 
later  voluntarily  adopted,  and  which,  seven  years 
later,  Great  Britain  agreed  to  incorporate  in  a  sol 
emn  treaty.  The  proposed  liability  for  the  abuse  o 


5  2      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

neutrality  by  belligerents,  so  invaluable  to  England, 
Lord  Russell  now  characterized  as  '  most  burden 
some,  and,  indeed,  most  dangerous  "  ;  while,  with  a 
simplicity  almost  humorous,  he  ejaculated,  "  surely 
we  are  not  bound  to  go  on  making  new  laws,  ad  in- 
finitum,  because  new  occasions  arise."  * 

So,  high-toned  Englishman  as  he  was,  Lord 
Russell,  guided  by  his  instincts  and  traditions,  as 
Prime  Minister  characteristically  went  on  to  make 
perceptibly  worse  what,  as  Eoreign  Secretary,  he 
had  already  made  quite  sufficiently  bad.  He  did 
not  aggrandize,  he  distinctly  belittled,  his  case.  In 
reply  to  the  renewed  demands  of  the  American 
Minister,  he  suggested,  in  a  most  casual  way,  the 
appointment  of  a  joint  commission,  to  which  should 
be  referred  "  all  claims  arising  during  the  late  civil 
war  [his  note  was  dated  August  3oth,  nearly  four 
months  after  the  capture  of  Jefferson  Davis]  which 
the  two  powers  shall  agree  to  refer."  The  corre 
spondence  was  at  once  published  in  the  Gazette  ; 
and,  so  general  was  the  proposition  of  reference, 
that  the  Times,  in  commenting  editorially  on  it  the 
morning  after  publication,  admitted  the  desirability 
of  a  settlement,  and  construed  the  proposal  of  a 
commission  as  designed  to  embrace  all  the  Ameri 
can  claims.  The  ''Thunderer's"  utterance  on  this 
point  might  be  inspired, — a  feeler  of  public  opinion. 
A  possible  way  out  seemed  to  open.  Earl  Russell 
characteristically  lost  no  time  in  closing  it.  At  a 
later  day,  after  the  Alabama  claims  had  been  arbi 
trated  and  paid,  his  Lordship  asserted  that  he  had 
always  been  willing  to  have  them  assumed,  or,  as 
he  expressed  it,  would  "  at  once  have  agreed  to  arbi- 

*The  official  correspondence  in  respect  to  the  Alabama,  p.  145. 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    53 

tration,"  could  he  have  received  assurances  on  cer 
tain  controverted  issues,  involving",  as  he  consid 
ered,  the  honor  and  dignity  of  Great  Britain.* 
This  was  clearly  an  after-thought,  reached  in  the 
light  of  subsequent  events.  No  suggestion  of  the 
sort  was  ever  made  by  him  to  Mr.  Adams  ;  and 
when,  in  August,  1865,  such  a  possible  construc 
tion  was  put  upon  his  despatches,  he  made  haste 
to  repudiate  it.  In  fact,  Earl  Russell,  still  Foreign 
Secretary  but  soon  to  become  Premier,  was  not 
yet  ready  to  take  the  first  step  in  the  educational 
process  marked  out  for  Great  Britain.  The  dose 
was,  indeed,  a  bitter  one  ;  no  wonder  Lord  Rus 
sell  contemplated  it  with  a  wry  face. 

So  the  Foreign  Secretary  in  August,  1865,  lost 
no  time  in  firmly  closing  the  door  which  seemed 
opening.  The  day  following  the  editorial  implica 
tion  of  the  Times  there  appeared  in  its  columns  an 
official  correction.  The  correctness  of  the  implica 
tion  was  denied.  As  Mr.  Adams  wrote  in  his 
diary,  the  proposal  of  a  joint  commission,  thus  ex 
plained,  "  really  stands  as  an  offer  to  refer  the  Brit 
ish  claims,  and  a  facile  refusal  to  include  ours. 
Wonderful  liberality !  "  ;  and,  a  few  days  later,  he 
added — "the  issue  of  the  present  complication  now 
is  that  Great  Britain  stands  as  asking  for  a  com 
mission  through  which  to  procure  a  settlement  of 
claims  advanced  by  herself,  at  the  same  time  that 
she  refuses  at  the  threshold  to  permit  the  introduc 
tion  of  all  the  material  demands  we  have  against 
her.  Thus  the  British  position  passes  all  the  time 
from  bad  to  worse.  The  original  blunder,  inspired 
by  the  over-eagerness  to  see  us  divided,  has  im- 

*  Recollections  and  Suggestions,  p.  278. 


54      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

pelled  a  neutral  policy,  carried  to  such  extremes  of 
encouragement  to  one  belligerent  as  seemingly  to 
hazard  the  security  of  British  commerce,  whenever 
the  country  shall  become  involved  in  a  war.  The 
sense  of  this  inspires  the  powers  of  Eastern  Europe 
with  vastly  increased  confidence  in  pursuing  their 
particular  objects.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that 
whatever  views  Russia  may  ultimately  have  on 
Constantinople  will  be  much  fortified  by  a  con 
sciousness  of  the  diversion  which  it  might  make 
through  the  neutral  ports  of  the  United  States 
against  the  British  commerce  of  one  half  of  the 
globe.  We  lose  nothing  by  the  passage  of  time  ; 
Great  Britain  does." 

This  somewhat  obvious  view  of  the  situation  evi 
dently  suggested  itself  to  the  mind  of  Earl  Rus 
sell's  successor  in  the  Foreign  Office,  for  Earl  Rus 
sell,  on  the  death  of  Lord  Palmerston  in  the  Autumn 
of  1865,  became  Prime  Minister.  So,  one  day  in 
the  following  December,  Mr.  Adams  was  sum 
moned  to  an  official  interview  with  the  new  Secre 
tary.  The  conversation  at  this  interview,  after  the 
matters  immediately  in  hand  were  disposed  of, 
passed  to  the  general  and  well-worn  subject  of  the 
neutrality  observed  by  Great  Britain  during  the 
struggle  which,  seven  months  before,  had  come  to 
its  close.  Lord  Clarendon,  Mr.  Adams  wrote,  in 
sisted  that  the  neutrality  "  had  been  perfectly  kept  ; 
and  I  signifying  my  conviction  that  a  similar  obser 
vation  of  it,  as  between  two  countries  so  closely 
adjacent  as  Great  Britain  and  France,  would  lead 
to  a  declaration  of  war  by  the  injured  party  in 
twenty-four  hours.  Here  we  might  have  closed 
the  conference,  but  his  Lordship  proceeded  to  con- 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  tJie   Transvaal.    55 

tinue  it  by  remarking  that  he  had  it  on  his  mind  to 
make  a  suggestion.  He  would  do  so.  He  went 
on  to  express  his  long  conviction  of  the  expediency 
of  a  union  of  sentiment  and  policy  between  two 
great  nations  of  the  same  race.  He  hoped  to  see 
them  harmonize,  after  the  immediate  irritation  con 
sequent  upon  the  late  struggle  should  have  passed 
away,  more  than  ever  before.  There  were  many 
things  in  what  was  called  International  Law  that 
are  now  in  a  vague  and  unsatisfactory  condition  ;  it 
would,  therefore,  seem  very  desirable  that  by  some 
form  of  joint  consultation,  more  or  less  extensive, 
these  points  could  be  fixed  on  something  like  a 
permanent  basis.  He  enquired  of  me  whether  I 
thought  my  government  would  be  at  all  inclined  to 
entertain  the  idea.  I  replied  that  the  object  was 
certainly  desirable ;  but  that,  in  the  precise  state 
in  which  things  had  been  left,  I  could  give  no  opin 
ion  on  the  question  proposed.  All  that  I  could  do 
was  to  report  it ;  and  that  not  in  any  official  way. 
His  Lordship  talked  a  little  grandly  about  our  over 
looking  the  past,  letting  bygones  be  bygones,  and 
considering  these  questions  solely  on  their  abstract 
importance  as  settling  great  principles.  He  said 
that  two  such  very  great  countries  could  scarcely 
be  expected  to  stoop  to  concessions  or  admissions 
in  regard  to  one  another.  Would  I  reflect  upon 
the  whole  matter.  All  this  time  I  was  rather  a  lis 
tener  than  a  speaker,  and  committed  myself  to  noth 
ing  but  vague  professions.  The  fact  stares  up  that 
this  government  is  not  easy  at  the  way  the  case  has 
been  left  by  Lord  Russell,  and  desires  to  get  out  of 
it  without  mortification.  My  own  opinion  is  rather 
against  any  effort  to  help  them  out.  I  ought  to 


56       Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington  : 

note  that  yesterday  Mr.  W.^E.  Forster  called  to 
see  me  for  the  purpose  of  urging  precisely  the  same 
tentative  experiment  at  Washington.  He  reasoned 
with  me  more  frankly,  in  the  same  strain,  and  evi 
dently  contemplated  a  more  complete  process  of 
rectification  of  the  blunder  than  Lord  Clarendon 
could  hint.  I  also  talked  to  him  with  more  free 
dom,  in  a  strain  of  great  indifference  about  arriving 
at  any  result ;  the  advantage  was  on  our  side,  and 
I  saw  no  prospect  of  its  diminishing  with  time.  He 
ended  by  asking  me  to  think  a  little  longer  about 
a  mode  of  running  the  negotiation  ;  for,  if  it  could 
be  done,  he  felt  sure  that  enough  power  could  be 
applied  to  bring  this  government  to  consent  to  it. 
I  replied  that  all  that  could  be  done  now  must  pass 
through  private  channels.  The  record  was  made 
up,  and  I  had  no  inclination  to  disturb  it." 

This  call  of  Mr.  Forster  at  that  particular  junct 
ure  was  significant ;  for  Mr.  Forster  less  than  a 
month  before  had  gone  into  Earl  Russell's  ministry, 
becoming  Under  Secretary  for  the  Colonies  ;  and 
Mr.  Forster  was  well  known  to  be  a  friend  of  the 
United  States.  Badly  compromised  by  Lord  Rus 
sell's  blundering  committals,  the  government  at 
least  appreciated  the  situation,  and  was  feeling  for 
a  way  out.  The  position  now  taken  by  the  Foreign 
Secretary  and  Mr.  Forster  was  clearly  suggestive 
of  the  subsequent  Johnson-Clarendon  convention. 
Nothing,  however,  immediately  resulted.  Lord 
Clarendon  had,  indeed,  at  the  time  of  his  talk  with 
Mr.  Adams,  already  put  his  suggestion  in  shape  to 
be  formally  submitted  to  Secretary  Seward  through 
the  British  minister  at  Washington  ;  and  when,  six 
weeks  later,  his  despatch  appeared  in  the  Blue 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    57 

Book,  Mr.  Adams  wrote:  "  The  object  is  now  evi 
dent.  It  is  to  blunt  the  effect  of  Lord  Russell's 
original  blunder,  and  try  to  throw  the  odium  of  it 
back  by  a  new  offer,  which  we  must  decline.  The 
contrivance  will  scarcely  work.  It  is  certainly  civil 
to  propose  that  we  should  bear  all  the  conse 
quences  of  their  policy,  and  consent  to  secure 
them  against  any  future  application  of  it  to  them 
selves." 

As  showing  how  very  sensitive  to  the  situation 
in  which  they  had  been  placed  the  English  now 
were,  Mr.  Adams  two  days  later  mentioned  a  long 
conversation  with  Mr.  Oliphant,  a  member  of  Par 
liament  then  just  back  from  a  visit  to  America.  The 
Fenian  movement  was  at  that  time  much  in  evi 
dence  through  its  British  dynamite  demonstrations, 
and  the  Irish  in  the  United  States  were  conse 
quently  in  a  state  of  chronic  excitement.  Mr.  Oli 
phant  called  in  regard  to  it.  After  some  discussion 
of  that  matter,  the  conversation  drifted  to  the  policy 
pursued  by  the  British  government  toward  the 
United  States,  of  which  Mr.  Oliphant  "  evidently  had 
not  approved.  It  should  have  been  either  positive 
intervention,  or  positive  amity.  The  effort  to  avoid 
both  had  excited  nothing  but  ill-will  from  both  par 
ties  in  the  war.  One  Southern  man  whom  he  had 
met  had  gone  so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  was  ready 
to  fight  England  even  on  the  case  of  the  Alabama. 
I  briefly  reviewed  the  course  taken,  and  pointed  out 
the  time  when  the  cordiality  between  the  countries 
could  have  been  fully  established.  It  was  not  im 
proved;  and  now  I  had  little  hope  of  restoring  it 
for  many  years."  It  was  during  the  ensuing  Sum 
mer  that  the  lower  House  of  Congress  passed  by 


58      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

acclamation  the  bill  already  ^referred  to,  repealing 
the  inhibitions  of  our  neutrality  laws. 

A  change  of  ministry  now  took  place  in  Great 
Britain.  Earl  Russell,  with  the  Liberals,  went  out 
of  office,  and  Lord  Derby,  at  the  head  of  the  Con 
servatives,  came  in.  Lord  Stanley,  the  oldest  son 
of  the  new  Premier,  succeeded  Lord  Clarendon  in 
the  Foreign  Office,  and  again  the  old  straw  was 
threshed  over.  A  distinct  step  was,  however,  now 
marked  in  advance.  The  new  Prime  Minister  took 
occasion  to  intimate  publicly  that  a  proposition  for 
the  arrangement  of  the  Alabama  claims  would  be 
favorably  entertained  ;  and  the  7^'mes,  of  course  un 
der  inspiration,  even  went  so  far  as  to  admit  that 
Earl  Russell's  position  on  that  subject  was  based  on 
a  "somewhat  narrow  and  one-sided  view  of  the 
question  at  issue.  It  was  not  safe,"  it  now  went  on 
to  say,  "  for  Great  Britain  to  make  neutrals  the  sole 
and  final  judges  of  their  own  obligations."  This 
was  a  distinct  enlargement  of  the  "  insular"  view.  It 
amounted  to  an  abandonment  of  the  contention  that 
a  petty  jury  in  an  English  criminal  court  was  the 
tribunal  of  last  resort  on  all  questions  involving  the 
international  obligations  of  Great  Britain. 

The  interminable  diplomatic  correspondence  now 
began  afresh  ;  and,  in  the  course  of  it,  Secretary 
Seward  rested  the  case  of  the  United  States  largely 
on  what  both  he  and  Mr.  Adams  termed  "  the  pre 
mature  and  injurious  proclamation  of  belligerency  " 
issued  by  the  British  government  in  May,  i86[. 
This  he  pronounced  the  fruitful  source  whence  all 
subsequent  evil  came.  Lord  Stanley  took  issue 
with  him  on  that  point.  He  did  not  deny  a  respon 
sibility  for  the  going  forth  of  Confederate  commerce- 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    59 

destroyers  from  British  ports,  and  a  certain  liability 
for  the  damages  by  them  caused ;  but,  he  contended, 
the  British  government  could  not  consent  to  arbi 
trate  the  question  whether  the  Confederacy  was 
prematurely  recognized  as  a  belligerent.  The  rec 
ognition  of  belligerency  in  any  given  case  was,  he 
contended,  a  matter  necessarily  resting  in  the  dis 
cretion  of  a  sovereign,  neutral  power.  He  inti 
mated,  however,  a  willingness  to  arbitrate  all  other 
questions  at  issue. 

In  view  of  the  position  always  from  the  com 
mencement  taken  by  the  American  Secretary  of 
State  and  his  representative  in  London,  this  limited 
arbitration  could  not  be  satisfactory.  Time  and 
again  Secretary  and  Minister  had  emphasized  the 
impropriety  and  unfriendliness  of  the  Queen's  Proc 
lamation  of  May  1 3th,  1861,  and  the  consequences 
thereof,  so  momentous  as  scarcely  to  admit  of  com 
putation.  Accordingly,  the  discussion  again  halted. 
In  June,  1868,  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland, 
succeeded  Mr.  Adams  in  London  ;  and,  once  more, 
negotiations  were  renewed.  And  now  the  British 
government  had  got  so  far  on  the  way  to  its  ulti 
mate  and  inevitable  destination,  that,  a  discreet  si 
lence  being  on  both  sides  observed  in  the  matter  of 
the  proclamation  of  May,  1861,  a  convention  was 
readily  agreed  to  covering  all  claims  of  the  citizens 
and  subjects  of  the  two  countries  against  the  gov 
ernments  of  each.  While  this  treaty  was  in  course 
of  negotiation,  another  change  of  ministry  took 
place  in  Great  Britain ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  who 
had  been  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  throughout 
the  Civil  War,  became  Premier,  Earl  Russell  being 
now  finally  retired  from  official  life.  Lord  Claren- 


60      Before  and  After  the    Treaty  of  Washington  : 

don  was  again  placed  in  charge  of  the  Foreign  Of 
fice.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  form  of  con 
vention  agreed  to  by  Lord  Derby  was  revised  by 
his  successor  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  reasonably 
satisfactory  to  Secretary  Seward,  and,  on  the  T4th 
of  January,  1869,  it  received  the  signatures  of  Mr. 
Johnson  and  Lord  Clarendon.  It  was  known  as 
the  Johnson-Clarendon  Convention. 

In  hurrying  this  very  important  negotiation  to  so 
quick  a  close  both  Secretary  Seward  and  Reverdy 
Johnson  were  much  influenced  by  a  very  natural 
ambition.  They  greatly  desired  that  a  settlement 
of  the  momentous  issues  between  the  two  great 
English-speaking  nations  should  be  effected  through 
their  agency.  Mr.  Seward  especially  was  eager  in 
his  wish  to  carry  to  a  final  solution  the  most  difficult 
of  the  many  intricate  complications  which  dated  back 
to  the  first  weeks  of  his  occupation  of  the  State  De 
partment.  Accordingly  he  did  not  now  repeat  his 
somewhat  rhetorical  arraignment  of  Great  Britain 
in  the  correspondence  of  two  years  before,  because 
of  the  proclamation  of  1861.  It  had  become  simply 
a  question  of  the  settlement  of  the  claims  of  indivi 
dual  citizens  and  subjects  of  one  country  against  the 
government  of  another.  Lord  Stanley's  contention 
on  the  belligerency  issue  was  tacitly  accepted  as 
sound.  This,  as  will  presently  appear,  implied  a 
great  deal.  It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  that 
primal  offence, — that  original  sin  which 

"  Brought  death  into  the  world  and  all  our  woe," 

could  thus  lightly  and  in  silence  be  relegated  to  the 

limbo  of  things  unimportant,  and  so,  quite  forgotten. 

The  negotiation  had  been  entered  upon  in  Au- 


American  Civil    War  and   War  in  the    Transvaal.    61 

gust,  1868;  the  convention  was  executed  in  Janu 
ary  following".  But  in  the  interim  a  presidential 
election  had  taken  place  in  the  United  States  ;  and? 
when  the  treaty  reached  America,  the  administra 
tion  of  Andrew  Johnson  was,  in  a  few  weeks  only} 
to  be  replaced  by  that  of  General  Grant.  Secretary 
Seward  would  then  cease  to  be  at  the  head  of  the 
Department  of  State  ;  and,  as  he  now  wrote  to 
Reverdy  Johnson,  "the  confused  light  of  an  incom 
ing  administration  was  spreading  itself  over  the 
country,  rendering  the  consideration  of  political  sub 
jects  irksome  if  not  inconvenient."  Charles  Sumner 
was  at  that  time  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations,  a  position  he  had  held 
through  eight  years.  As  chairman  of  that  commit 
tee  the  fate  of  the  treaty  rested  largely  with  him. 
The  President-elect,  with  no  very  precise  policy  in 
his  mind  to  be  pursued  on  the  issues  involved, 
wished  to  have  the  claims  convention  go  over  until 
his  administration  was  in  office ;  and  when,  in  Feb 
ruary,  the  convention  was  taken  up  in  the  Senate 
committee,  all  its  members  expressed  themselves 
as  opposed  to  its  ratification.  "  We  begin  to 
day,"  Mr.  Sumner  then  said,  referring  to  the  re 
jection  of  the  proposed  settlement  as  a  foregone 
conclusion,  "an  international  debate,  the  greatest 
of  our  history,  and,  before  it  is  finished,  the  greatest 
of  all  history."  * 

*  Pierce's  Sumner,  vol.  iv,  p.  368. 


62      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 


III  • 

It  was  now  that  Mr.  Fish  came  upon  the  scene, 
as  the  successor  of  Secretary  Seward  in  the  Depart 
ment  of  State.  And  here,  perhaps,  it  would  be 
proper  for  me  to  say  that  I  had  no  acquaintance  of 
a  personal  sort  with  Mr.  Fish.  Born  in  New  York, 
in  1808,  he  died  at  Garrison-on-the-Hudson  in  1893. 
He  was,  I  am  informed,  President  of  this  Society 
for  two  years, — 1867-69, — necessarily  resigning 
the  office  when  he  accepted  a  position  in  the  Cab 
inet  of  President  Grant.  Later  his  name  appears 
as  Vice-President,  an  office  from  which  he  withdrew 
in  1888  because  of  advancing  years.  It  so  chanced 
also  that  I  never  but  once  met  Mr.  Fish.  In  the 
summer  of  1890,  I  think  it  was,  some  years  preced 
ing  his  death,  I  passed  a  morning  with  him  by  ap 
pointment  at  his  country  home  at  Garrison,  going 
there  to  obtain  from  him,  if  I  could,  some  information 
on  a  subject  I  was  then  at  work  on.  Beyond  this, 
I  knew  him  only  as  a  public  character,  more  or  less 
actively  engaged  in  political  life  through  twenty-five 
exceptionally  eventful  years. 

Held  in  its  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  convention  was  not  acted  upon 
by  the  Senate,  at  the  time  sitting  in  executive  ses 
sion,  until  the  I3th  of  April,  1869.  It  was  then  re 
jected  by  a  practically  unanimous  vote  (54  to  i)  fol 
lowing  an  elaborate  speech  in  condemnation  of  it  by 
the  chairman  of  the  committee  having  it  in  charge. 
That  speech  was  important.  It  marked  a  possible 
parting  of  the  ways.  In  that  speech,  and  by  means 
of  it,  Mr.  Summer  not  only  undid,  and  more  than 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.    63 

undid,  all  that  yet  had  been  done  looking  to  an  am 
icable  adjustment  of  the  questions  at  issue  between 
the  two  nations,  but  he  hedged  thick  with  difficul 
ties  any  approach  to  such  an  adjustment  in  the 
future.  To  appreciate  this,  the  essential  feature  of 
the  Clarendon-Johnson  convention  must  be  borne 
constantly  in  mind. 

As  I  have  already  said,  that  convention  provided 
only  for  the  settlement  of  the  claims  of  individuals. 
The  question  of  liability  was  to  be  referred  to  ar 
bitration.  The  right  of  Great  Britain  to  judge  for 
itself  as  to  the  time  and  manner  of  the  recognition 
of  the  Confederacy  as  a  belligerent  power  was  not 
called  in  question,  or  submitted  to  arbitrament.  A 
settlement  was  thus  made  possible  ;  indeed,  the 
way  to  a  settlement  was  opened  wide.  The  con 
cession  was  also  proper ;  for,  viewed  historically, 
and  with  a  calm  regard  for  recognized  principles  of 
international  law,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  long 
and  strenuously  urged  contention  of  Secretary  Sew- 
ard  and  Mr.  Adams  over  what  they  described  as  the 
"premature  and  injurious  proclamation  of  belliger 
ency,"  and  the  consequences  of  the  precipitancy  of 
Great  Britain  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Rebellion, 
was  by  them  carried  to  an  undue  length.  Un 
questionably  the  British  ministry  did  issue  the  very 
important  proclamation  of  May,  1861,  with  undue 
haste  ;  and,  in  so  doing,  they  were  unquestionably 
actuated  by  a  motive  they  could  not  declare.  The 
newly  accredited  American  Minister  had  not  then 
reached  London  ;  but  he  was  known  to  be  on  his 
way,  and,  in  fact,  saw  the  just  issued  proclamation 
in  the  Gazette  the  morning  of  his  arrival.  The  in 
tention  of  the  Government  undoubtedly  was  that 


64      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

this  question  should  be  disposed  of, — be  an  accom 
plished  fact, — in  advance  of  any  protests.  It  had 
been  decided  on ;  discussion  was  useless.  This 
was  neither  usual  nor  courteous  ;  and  from  it  much 
was  naturally  inferred:  but  it  by  no  means  followed 
that  the  step  was  taken  in  an  unfriendly  spirit,  or 
that  it  in  fact  worked  any  real  prejudice  to  the 
Union  cause.  That  it  was  a  grievous  blow,  given 
with  a  hostile  intent  and  the  source  of  infinite  sub 
sequent  trouble  and  loss  to  the  United  States  gov 
ernment,  Secretary  Seward  and  Mr.  Adams  always 
afterwards  maintained  ;  and,  during  the  war,  very 
properly  maintained.  But  for  it,  they  asserted 
and  seem  even  to  have  persuaded  themselves,  the 
Rebellion  would  have  collapsed  in  its  infancy.  Be 
cause  of  it,  the  struggling  insurrection  grew  into  a 
mighty  conflict,  and  was  prolonged  to  at  least  twice 
the  length  of  life  it  otherwise  would  have  attained. 
And  for  this,  and  for  the  loss  of  life  and  treasure  in 
it  involved,  Great  Britain  stood  morally  account 
able  ;  or,  as  Secretary  Seward  years  afterwards 
saw  fit  to  phrase  it,  in  rhetoric  which  now  impresses 
one  as  neither  sober  nor  well  considered,  it  was 
Her  Majesty's  proclamation  which  conferred  "  upon 
the  insurrection  the  pregnant  baptismal  name  of 
Civil  War." 

There  then  was,  and  there  now  is,  nothing  on 
which  to  base  so  extreme  an  assumption.  On  the 
contrary,  the  historical  evidence  tends  indisputably 
to  show  that,  though  designedly  precipitate,  the 
proclamation  was  issued  in  no  unfriendly  spirit.  On 
this  point,  the  statement  of  William  E.  Forster  is 
conclusive.  Mr.  Forster,  then  a  newly  elected 
member  of  Parliament,  himself  urged  the  issuance 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    65 

of  the  proclamation,  and  looked  upon  it  as  a  point 
gained  for  the  cause  of  the  Union  ;  *  and,  eight 
years  later,  he  declared  that  "  from  personal  recol 
lection  and  knowledge  "  he  could  testify  that  "the 
proclamation  was  not  made  with  unfriendly  animus  " 
to  the  United  States.  On  the  contrary,  he  showed 
it  was  issued  "  in  accordance  with  the  earnest 
wishes  of  himself  and  other  friends  of  the  North."  f 
Again,  there  is  good  ground  on  which  to  argue 
that  the  premature  issuance  of  the  proclamation, 
however  intended,  worked  most  happily  in  favor  of 
the  Union  cause.  {  It  is  obvious  that  the  proclama 
tion  could  not  in  any  event  have  been  withheld 
more  than  ninety  days  ;  for,  within  that  period,  the 
Confederacy  had  at  Manassas  incontrovertibly  es 
tablished  its  position  as  a  belligerent,  and  the  Con 
federate  flag  on  the  high  seas,  combined  with  a 
Union  blockade  of  3,000  miles  of  hostile  coast,  was 
evidence  not  easily  explained  away,  of  a  de  facto 
government  on  land.  Under  such  conditions,  it  is 
idle  to  maintain  that  the  recognition  of  belligerency 
did  not  fairly  rest  in  the  discretion  of  a  neutral,  the 
rights  of  whose  people  were  being  daily  compro 
mised,  while  their  property  was  more  than  merely 
liable  to  seizure  and  confiscation.  Moreover,  had 
the  recognition  been  delayed  until  after  the  dis 
grace  of  Bull  Run,  it  would  in  all  probability  have 
been  complete,  and  have  extended  to  a  recognition 
of  nationality  as  well  as  of  mere  de  fctcto  belliger 
ency.  Nor,  finally,  is  there  anything  in  the  record, 
as  since  more  fully  developed,  which  leads  to  the 
belief  that  the  struggle  would  have  been  shorter 

*  Reid's  Forster^  vol.  i,  p.  335.  f  Ibid.,\o\.  ii,  p.  12. 

\Life  of  C.  F.  Adams,  American  Statesman  Series,  pp.  171-4. 


66      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington: 

even  by  a  month,  or  in  any  degree  less  costly  as 
respects  either  life  or  treasure,  had  the  Confederacy 
never  been  buoyed  up  by  the  confident  hope  of  a 
voluntary  foreign  recognition,  and  consequent  aid 
from  without.  The  evidence  is  indeed  all  to  the 
opposite  effect.  As  since  developed  it  is  fairly  con 
clusive  that,  almost  to  the  end,  and  unquestionably 
down  to  the  close  of  1863,  while  the  Confederates, 
rank  and  file  as  well  as  leaders  civil  and  military, 
confidently  counted  on  being  able  through  the  po 
tency  of  their  cotton  control,  to  compel  an  even  re 
luctant  European  recognition,  they  never  for  a  mo 
ment  doubted  their  ability  to  maintain  themselves, 
and  achieve  independence  without  extraneous  aid  of 
any  kind.  Thirty  years  in  preparation,  calling  into 
action  all  the  resources  of  a  singularly  masterful 
and  impulsive  race,  numbering  millions  and  occu 
pying  a  highly  defensible  territory  of  enormous 
area,  the  Confederate  rebellion  was  never  that 
sickly,  accidental  foster-child  of  Great  Britain  which, 
in  all  their  diplomatic  contentions,  Secretary  Sew- 
ard  and  Senator  Sumner  tried  so  hard  to  make  it 
out, — a  mere  bantling  dandled  into  premature  ex 
istence  by  an  incomplete  foreign  recognition.  On 
the  contrary,  from  start  to  finish,  it  \vas  Titanic  in 
proportions  and  spirit.  It  presented  every  feature 
of  war  on  the  largest  scale,  domestic  and  foreign. 
From  the  outset,  neutral  interests  were  involved  ; 
foreign  opinion  was  evoked.  In  face  of  such  con 
ditions  and  facts  as  those  to  go  on  to  the  end  of 
the  chapter  asserting  that  such  a  complete  and  for 
midable  embodiment  of  all-pervasive  warlike  en 
ergy  should  through  years  have  been  ignored  as 
an  existing  fact  and  refused  a  recognition  even  as 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   67 

belligerent,  was,  historically  speaking",  the  reverse 
of  creditable, — it  was  puerile.  Yet,  after  this  un 
paralleled  struggle  had  been  brought  to  a  close, 
Secretary  Seward  had  the  assurance  to  assert  in  a 
despatch  to  Mr.  Adams  written  in  January,  1867, 
— "  Before  the  Queen's  proclamation  of  neutrality 
the  disturbance  in  the  United  States  was  merely  a 
local  insurrection.  It  wanted  the  name  of  war  to 
enable  it  to  be  a  civil  war  and  to  live  "  ;  and  this 
was  merely  the  persistent  iteration  of  a  similar 
statement  likewise  made  to  Mr.  Adams  shortly 
prior  to  the  1862  disasters  at  Shiloh  and  before 
Richmond, — "  If  Great  Britain  should  revoke  her 
decree  conceding  belligerent  rights  to  the  insur 
gents  to-day,  this  civil  strife  *  *  would  end 
to-morrow."  * 

The  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  was  open  to 
criticism  at  many  points,  and  its  rejection  by  the 
Senate  was  altogether  defensible.  It  did,  how 
ever,  have  one  merit,  it  quietly  relegated  to  ob 
livion  the  wholly  indefensible  positions  just  referred 
to.  In  so  far  it  was  thoroughly  commendable.  By 
so  much  the  discussion  approached  a  common- 
sense,  amicable  settlement,  on  a  rational  basis. 
Unfortunately  it  was  upon  that  very  feature  of  the 
treaty  Mr.  Sumner  characteristically  directed  his 
criticism  and  brought  his  rhetoric  to  bear.  In  so 
doing  he  gave  the  debate  a  violent  wrench,  forcing 
it  back  into  its  former  impossible  phase  ;  and,  in  so 
far  as  in  him  lay,  he  made  impossible  any  future 
approach  to  an  adjustment.  Recurring  in  his 
speech,  subsequently  published  by  order  of  the 
Senate,  to  the  sentimental  grounds  of  complaint 

*  Dip.  Cor.,   1862,  p.  43. 


68      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

because  of  conjectural  injuries  resulting  from  pre 
cipitate  action  based  on  an  asstimed  unfriendly  pur 
pose  in  the  issuance  of  the  proclamation  of  May  13, 

1 86 1,  he   proceeded  to   do   what   his   great  model 
Burke  had  declared  himself  unwilling  to   do, — he 
framed  an  indictment  of  a  whole  people, — an    in 
dictment  of  many  counts,  some  small,  others  gran 
diose,  all  couched  in  language  incontestably  Sum- 
neresque.      In    1869    he    fairly    outdid    Seward    in 

1862.  Because  of  the  proclamation,  and   because 
of  that  solely,  he  pronounced  Great  Britain  respon 
sible  not  only  for  the  losses  incurred  through  the 
depredations  of  all   British-built  Confederate  com 
merce-destroyers,  but  for  all  consequent  losses  and 
injuries,  conjectural  and  consequential,  computable 
or  impossible  of  computation,  including  the  entire 
cost  of  the  Civil  War  during  half  its  length,  and  an 
estimate  of   the    value  of  a  large,  and  increasing, 
proportion   of  the  world's  carrying  trade  ;   with  in 
terest  to   date   of  settlement  on  the  whole.     The 
"  war    prolongation  "  claim,   as   it  was  called,   Mr. 
Gladstone  afterwards  estimated  as  alone  amounting 
to  eight  thousand  million  dollars  (^1,600,000,000)  ; 
while  Mr.  Sumner,  from  lack  of  information  only, 
failed    to    include  a  trifle  of  an  hundred   millions, 
which  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  the  Navy  had, 
in  1864,  put  down  as  the  increased  expenditure  im 
posed  on  the  United  States  by  the  naval  operations 
set  on  foot  by  his  department  alone.*     The  chair 
man  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations 
did,  however,  put   himself  on    record  deliberately, 
and   not  in   the   heat   of  debate,  as  estimating  the 
money    liability    of   Great   Britain,  because  of  the 

*Bulloch,  vol.  ii,  p.  112. 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    69 

issuance  of  the  proclamation  of  May  13,  i86r,  at 
twenty-five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  ;  and  he 
clinched  the  matter  by  declaring  that  "  whatever 
may  be  the  final  settlement  of  these  great  accounts, 
such  must  be  the  judgment  in  any  chancery  which 
consults  the  simple  equity  of  the  case."  And  this 
proposition  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  now 
by  formal  vote  approved,  promulgating  it  to  the 
world  as  its  own. 

No  one  in  the  United  States  was  at  that  time  so 
familiar  with  the  issues  between  the  two  countries, 
or  so  qualified  to  speak  understandingly  of  them  as 
Mr.  Adams,  from  his  Boston  retirement  then  watch 
ing  the  course  of  events  with  a  deep  and  natural 
interest.  On  reading  Mr.  Sumner's  speech,  and 
noting  the  unanimity  of  the  vote  by  which  the  Sen 
ate  had  rejected  the  convention,  he  wrote, — "  The 
practical  effect  of  this  is  to  raise  the  scale  of  our 
demands  of  reparation  so  very  high  that  there  is 
no  chance  of  negotiation  left,  unless  the  English 
have  lost  all  their  spirit  and  character.  The  posi 
tion  in  which  it  places  Mr.  Bright  and  our  old 
friends  in  the  struggle  is  awkward  to  the  last  de 
gree.  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  who  was  at  the  meet 
ing  of  the  [Massachusetts]  Historical  Society  [which 
chanced  that  day  to  be  held]  spoke  of  it  to  me  with 
some  feeling.  The  whole  affair  is  ominous  of  the 
change  going  on  in  our  form  of  government ;  for 
this  is  a  pronunciamento  from  the  Senate  as  the 
treaty  -  making  power.  There  were  intimations 
made  to  me  in  conversation  that  the  end  of  it  all 
was  to  be  the  annexation  of  Canada  by  way  of  full 
indemnity.  Movements  were  going  on  in  that  re 
gion  to  accelerate  the  result.  I  suppose  that  event 


7O      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

is  inevitable  at  some  time ;  but  I  doubt  whether  it 
will  come  in  just  that  form.  Great  Britain  will  not 
confess  a  wrong,  and  sell  Canada  as  the  price  of  a 
release  from  punishment.  '  I  begin  to  be  ap 

prehensive  that  the  drift  of  this  government  under 
the  effect  of  that  speech  will  be  to  a  misunder 
standing  ;  and,  not  improbably,  an  ultimate  seizure 
of  Canada  by  way  of  indemnification."  To  the  same 
effect  the  British  Minister  at  Washington,  Mr.  Thorn 
ton,  was  apprising  his  government  that,  in  the  Senate 
debate  held  in  executive  session,  "  Mr.  Sumner  was 
followed  by  a  few  other  Senators,  all  speaking  in 
the  same  sense.  Mr.  Chandler,  Senator  from 
Michigan,  seeming  to  be  most  violent  against  Eng 
land,  indicating  his  desire  that  Great  Britain  should 
possess  no  territory  on  the  American  Continent." 

Gen.  Grant  was  now  fairly  entered  on  his  first 
presidential  term,  and  Mr.  Fish  had,  for  some  five 
weeks,  been  Secretary  of  State.  So  far  as  con 
cerned  an  amicable  settlement  between  Great  Brit 
ain  and  the  United  States  the  outlook  was  quite 
unpropitious ;  less  propitious  in  fact  than  at  any 
previous  time.  The  new  President  was  a  military 
man,  and,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Sumner,  he  was 
"  known  to  feel  intensely  on  the  Alabama  question." 
At  the  close  of  the  war  he  had  expressed  himself  in 
a  way  hostile  to  Great  Britain,  not  caring  whether 
she  "  paid  '  our  little  bill '  or  not ;  upon  the  whole 
he  would  rather  she  should  not,  and  that  would 
leave  the  precedent  of  her  conduct  in  full  force  for 
us  to  follow,  and  he  wished  it  understood  that  we 
should  follow  it."  During-  the  war,  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  regard  Great  Britain  as  "  an  enemy," 
and  the  mischief  caused  by  her  course  he  thought 


American  Civil  War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    71 

not  capable  of  over-statement;  and,  in  May, 
1869,  Sumner  wrote  that  the  President's  views 
were  in  close  conformity  with  those  set  forth  in  his 
speech,  and  that  after  its  delivery  Gen.  Grant  had 
thanked  and  congratulated  him.  Everything",  con 
sequently,  now  seemed  to  indicate  that  events  must 
take  the  course  thus  marked  out  for  them.  Great 
Britain  would  have  to  face  the  contingencies  of  the 
future  weighted  down  by  the  policy  followed  by 
Palmerston  and  Russell,  and  confronted  by  the 
precedents  of  the  Florida,  the  Alabama,  and  the 
Skenandoah.  She  had  taken  her  position  in  1861- 
65,  defiantly  proclaiming  that,  for  her,  conditions 
could  never  be  reversed,  the  womb  of  the  future 
contained  no  day  of  reckoning, — no  South  Africa. 

Into  the  details  of  what  now  ensued,  it  is  not 
necessary  here  to  enter.  They  are  matter  of  his 
tory ;  and  as  such,  sufficiently  familiar.  I  shall  pass 
rapidly  over  even  the  Motley  imbroglio,  coming 
directly  to  the  difficulty  between  Mr.  Fish  and  Mr. 
Sumner, — high  officials  both,  the  one  Secretary  of 
State,  the  other  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations.  In  regard  to  this  difficulty 
much  has  been  written  ;  more  said.  In  discussing 
it,  whether  by  pen  or  word  of  mouth,  no  little  tem 
per  has  been  displayed ;  but,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
its  significance  in  an  historical  way  has  never  been 
developed.  As  I  look  upon  it,  it  was  an  essential 
factor, — almost  a  necessary  preliminary  to  that  read 
justment  of  relations  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  now  so  influential  a  factor  in  the  in 
ternational  relations  of  four  continents. 

The  divergence  between  the  two  was  almost  im- 

o 

mediate.     The  position  of  Mr.  Fish,  as  head  of  the 


72      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

State  Department,  was,  so  far  as  Mr.  Sumner  was 
concerned,  one  of  great  and.  constantly  increasing 
difficulty.  The  latter  had  then  been  seventeen 
years  a  member  of  the  Senate,  and,  during  eight  of 
the  seventeen,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  For 
eign  Relations.  Secretary  Seward  had  been  Mr. 
Simmer's  senior  in  the  Senate,  and  afterwards  Sec 
retary  of  State  from  the  commencement  of  Sumner's 
chairmanship  of  his  committee.  Naturally,  there 
fore,  though  he  had  often  been  bitter  in  his  attacks 
on  the  Secretary, — at  times,  indeed,  more  suo,  in 
dulging  even  in  language  which  knew  no  limit  of 
moderation, — he  regarded  him  with  very  different 
eyes  from  those  through  which  he  cast  glances  of  a 
somewhat  downward  kind  on  Seward's  successor  in 
office.  In  earlier  senatorial  days,  when  they  sat 
together  in  that  body  during  the  Pierce  administra 
tion,  Mr.  Fish  had  always  evinced  much  deference 
to  Sumner's  scholarly  and  social  attributes,  and  had 
treated  him  with  a  consideration  which  the  latter 
not  impossibly  misconstrued.  The  evidence  is  clear 
and  of  record  that,  when  unexpectedly  called  to  take 
charge  of  the  State  Department,  Mr.  Fish  was  solic 
itous  as  to  Sumner's  feeling  towards  him,  and  anx 
ious  to  assure  himself  of  the  latter's  co-operation 
and  even  guidance.  Meanwhile,  though  wholly  un 
conscious  of  the  fact,  Mr.  Sumner  could  not  help 
regarding  Mr.  Fish  as  a  tyro,  and  was  not  disposed 
to  credit  him  with  any  very  clearly  defined  ideas  of 
his  own.  He  assumed,  as  matter  of  course,  that 
at  last  the  shaping  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  coun 
try  would  by  seniority  devolve  upon  him.  The  ap 
pointment  of  Mr.  Motley  to  succeed  Mr.  Reverdy 
Johnson  in  the  English  mission  undoubtedly  con- 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the    Transvaal.    73 

firmed  him  in  this  opinion.  Mr.  Motley  was  his 
appointee.  That  the  new  plenipotentiary  regarded 
himself  as  such  at  once  became  apparent ;  for,  im 
mediately  after  his  confirmation,  he  prepared  a  me 
moir  suggestive  of  the  instructions  to  be  given  him. 
The  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  had  just  been 
rejected ;  the  course  now  to  be  pursued  was  under 
advisement;  Mr.  Sumner's  recent  speech  was  still 
matter  of  general  discussion.  The  new  President 
was  understood  to  have  no  very  clearly  defined 
ideas  on  the  subject ;  it  was  assumed  that  Mr.  Fish 
was  equally  susceptible  to  direction.  Mr.  Motley, 
therefore,  looked  to  Mr.  Sumner  for  inspiration.  In 
his  memorandum  he  sucra-ested  that  it  was  not  ad- 

o  o 

visable  at  present  to  attempt  any  renewal  of  nego 
tiations.  And  then  he  fell  back  on  the  proclamation 
of  May,  1 86 1  ;  proceeding  to  dilate  on  that  wrong 
committed  by  Great  Britain, — a  wrong  so  deeply 
felt  by  the  American  people  !  This  sense  of  wrong 
had  now  been  declared  gravely,  solemnly,  without 
passion  ;  and  the  sense  of  it  was  not  to  be  expunged 
by  a  mere  money  payment  to  reimburse  a  few  capt 
ures  and  conflagrations  at  sea.  And  here,  for  the 
present,  he  proposed  to  let  the  matter  rest.  A  time 
might  come  when  Great  Britain  would  see  her  fault, 
and  be  disposed  to  confess  it.  Reparation  of  some 
sort  would  then  naturally  follow  ;  but,  meanwhile, 
it  was  not  for  the  United  States  to  press  the  matter 
further. 

Distinct  indications  of  a  divergence  of  opinion  as 
to  the  course  to  be  pursued  were  at  once  apparent. 
The  President,  acting  as  yet  under  the  influence  of 
Mr.  Sumner,  wished  Mr.  Motley  to  proceed  forth 
with  to  his  post;  Mr.  Fish  inclined  to  delay  his  go- 


74      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

ing.  Meanwhile  the  Secretary  was  at  work  on  the 
new  minister's  letter  of  instructions ;  and  in  them 
he  clearly  did  not  draw  his  inspiration  from  the 
Motley  memoir.*  On  the  contrary,  referring  to  the 
fate  of  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  in  the 
Senate,  he  proceeded  to  say  that,  because  of  this 
action,  the  government  of  the  United  States  did  not 
abandon  "  the  hope  of  an  early,  satisfactory  and 
friendly  settlement  of  the  questions  depending  be 
tween  the  two  governments."  The  suspension  of 
negotiations,  he  added,  would,  the  President  hoped, 
be  regarded  by  Her  Majesty's  government,  as  it 
was  by  him,  "as  wholly  in  the  interest,  and  solely 
with  a  view,  to  an  early  and  friendly  settlement." 
The  Secretary  then  went  on  to  open  the  way  to 
such  a  settlement  by  defining,  in  terms  presently  to 
be  referred  to,  the  views  of  the  President  on  the 
effect  to  be  ascribed  to  the  Queen's  proclamation 
of  May,  1 86 1. 

At  this  point,  the  reason  became  apparent  why 
Mr.  Fish  was  in  no  haste  to  have  the  newly  ap 
pointed  minister  proceed  at  once  to  London.  The 
Secretary  was  in  a  dilemma.  The  rule  of  action  he 
was  about  to  lay  down  as  that  which  should  have 
guided  the  British  government  in  1861  must  con 
trol  the  United  States  in  1869.  That  was  obvious; 
but,  in  1869,  the  United  States  was  itself  the  in- 

*  Subsequently,  in  September,  1877,  Grant  said,  when  at  Edin 
burgh—"  Mr.  Motley  had  to  be  instructed.  The  instructions  were 
prepared  very  carefully,  and  after  Governor  Fish  and  I  had  gone  over 
them  for  the  last  time  I  wrote  an  addendum  charging  him  that  above 
all  things  he  should  handle  the  subject  of  the  Alabama  claims  with 
the  greatest  delicacy.  Mr.  Motley,  instead  of  obeying  his  implicit 
instructions,  deliberately  fell  in  line  with  Sumner  and  thus  added  in 
sult  to  the  previous  injury." 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    75 

terested  observer  of  an  insurrection  in  the  neigh 
boring  island  of  Cuba  ;  and,  moreover,  the  new 
President  was  not  backward  in  expressing  the  warm 
sympathy  he  felt  for  the  insurgents  against  Spanish 
colonial  misrule.  He  wished  also  to  forward  their 
cause.  That  wish  would  find  natural  expression  in 
a  recognition  of  belligerent  rights.  Gen.  Grant 
was  a  man  of  decided  mind ;  he  was  very  persist 
ent  ;  his  ways  were  military  ;  and,  as  to  principles 
of  international  law,  his  knowledge  of  them  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  been  so  much  limited  as  to 
tally  wanting.  He  inclined  strongly  to  a  policy  of 
territorial  expansion  ;  but  his  views  were  in  the  di 
rection  of  the  tropics, — the  Antilles  and  Mexico,— 
rather  than  towards  Canada  and  the  North.  As 
the  event,  however,  showed,  once  his  mind  was 
made  up  and  his  feelings  enlisted,  it  was  not  possi 
ble  to  divert  him  from  his  end.  In  the  matter  of 
foreign  policy,  the  course  he  now  had  in  mind, 
though  neither  of  the  two  at  first  realized  the  fact, 
involved  of  necessity  and  from  the  outset  a  struggle 
with  Mr.  Sumner ;  and,  to  one  who  knew  the  men, 
appreciating  their  characteristics  and  understanding 
their  methods,  it  was  easy  to  foresee  that  the  strug 
gle  would  be  as  bitter  as  it  was  prolonged  and  un 
relenting. 

o 

As  different  in  their  mental  attributes  as  in 
their  physical  appearance,  while  Mr.  Sumner  was, 
intellectually,  morally  and  physically,  much  the 
finer  and  more  imposing  human  product,  Grant  had 
counterbalancing  qualities  which  made  him,  in  cer 
tain  fields,  the  more  formidable  opponent.  With 
immense  will,  he  was  taciturn  ;  Sumner,  on  the  con 
trary,  in  no  way  deficient  in  will,  was  a  man  of  many 


76      Before  and  After  the  Treaty  of  Washington  : 

words, — a  rhetorician.  In  action  and  among  men, 
Grant's  self-control  was  perfect, — amounting  to 
complete  apparent  imperturbability.  Unassuming, 
singularly  devoid  of  self-consciousness,  in  presence 
of  an  emergency  his  blood  never  seemed  to  quicken, 
his  face  became  only  the  more  set,  tenacity  personi 
fied  ;  whereas  Sumner, — when  morally  excited,  the 
rush  of  his  words,  his  deep  tremulous  utterance  and 
the  light  in  his  eye,  did  not  impart  conviction  or  in 
spire  respect.  Doubts  would  suggest  themselves  to 
the  unsympathetic,  or  only  partially  sympathetic, 
listener  whether  the  man  was  of  altogether  balanced 
mind.  At  such  times,  Mr.  Sumner  did  not  appreciate 
the  force  of  language,  or,  indeed,  know  what  he  said  ; 
and,  quite  unconsciously  on  his  part,  he  assumed  an 
attitude  of  moral  superiority  and  intellectual  certainty, 
in  no  way  compatible  with  a  proper  appreciation  of 
the  equality  of  others.  In  the  mind  of  a  man  like 
Grant,  these  peculiarities  excited  obstinacy,  anger 
and  contempt.  Thus,  an  agitator  and  exponent  of 
ideas,  Mr.  Sumner  might  and  did  stimulate  masses, 
but  he  was  never,  man  or  boy,  a  leader  among 
equals.  Moreover,  as  one  of  his  truest  friends  and 
warmest  admirers  said  of  him,  he  was  prone  to  re 
gard  difference  of  opinion  as  a  moral  delinquency.* 
Grant,  on  the  contrary,  not  retentive  of  enmities,  re 
gardless  of  consistency,  and  of  coarse  moral  as  well 
as  physical  fibre,  moved  towards  his  ends  with  a 
stubborn  persistency  which  carried  others  along 
with  him,  and  against  which  a  perfervid,  rhetorical 
opposition  was  apt  to  prove  unavailing. 

*  "  A  man  who  did  not  believe  there  was  another  side  to  the  question, 
who  would  treat  difference  of  opinion  almost  as  moral  delinquency." 
Geo.  William  Curtis,  in  his  oration  on  Charles  Sumner  ;  Orations 
and  Addresses,  vol.  iii,  p.  230. 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    77 

Mr.  Fish  stood  between  the  two.  So  far  as  ques 
tions  of  foreign  policy  and  problems  of  international 
law  were  concerned,  though,  as  the  result  unmis 
takably  showed,  well  grounded  in  fundamental  prin 
ciples  and  with  a  grasp  of  general  conditions  at 
once  firm  and  correct,  there  is  no  evidence  that,  be 
fore  his  quite  unexpected  summons  to  the  Depart 
ment  of  State,  the  new  Secretary  had  felt  called 
upon  to  form  definite  conclusions.  By  nature  cau 
tious  and  conservative,  not  an  imaginative  man, 
having  passed  his  whole  life  in  a  New  York  social 
and  commercial  environment,  he  would  have  in 
clined  to  proceed  slowly  in  any  path  of  expansion, 
most  of  all  in  one  heading  towards  the  tropics,  and 
an  admixture  of  half-breeds.  So  far  as  Great  Brit 
ain  was  concerned,  he  would,  on  the  other  hand,  be 
disposed  to  effect,  if  he  could,  an  amicable,  business 
like  settlement  on  rational  terms.  From  the  begin 
ning  he  was  inclined  to  think  Mr.  Sumner  had  in  his 
speech  gone  too  far, — that  the  positions  he  had 
taken  were  not  altogether  tenable.  The  British 
proclamation  of  May,  1861,  he  regarded  as  a 
"  grievous  wrong"  under  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  but  he  assented  to  the  position  of  Lord 
Stanley  that  issuing  it  was  within  the  strict  right 
of  the  neutral,  and  the  question  of  time  was  one  of 
judgment.  As  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  May,  1869, 
four  weeks  after  Mr.  Sumner  had  enunciated  very 
different  views  in  his  Senate  speech,  the  proclama 
tion  could  be  made  subject  of  complaint  only  as 
leading  in  its  execution  and  enforcement  to  the  fit 
ting  out  of  \heAlabama,  &c.,  and  the  moral  sup 
port  given  in  England  to  the  rebel  cause.  "  Sum- 
ner's  speech  was  able  and  eloquent,  and  perhaps 


78      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

not  without  a  good  effect.  *  *  *  Although  the 
only  speech  made  in  the  dejbate,  it  was  not  the  ar 
gument  of  all  who  agreed  in  the  rejection  of  the 
treaty,  and  we  cannot  stand  upon  it  in  all  its  points." 
Within  a  week  of  the  rejection  of  the  Johnson- 
Clarendon  convention  he  wrote  to  another  friend, 
"  Whenever  negotiations  are  resumed,  the  atmos 
phere  and  the  surroundings  of  this  side  of  the  water 
are  more  favorable  to  a  proper  solution  of  the  ques 
tion  than  the  dinner-tables  and  the  public  banquet- 
tings  of  England." 

Thus  from  the  very  commencement  there  was  an 
essential  divergence  of  view  between  the  Secretary 
of  State  and  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  as 
well  as  between  the  latter  and  the  President.  As 
between  Charles  Sumner  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  past 
friendly  relations,  similar  social  connections  and 
common  tastes  would  decidedly  have  drawn  Mr. 
Fish  towards  the  former  ;  but,  by  nature  loyal,  he 
was  distinctly  repelled  by  Mr.  Sumner's  demeanor. 

I  have  dwelt  on  these  personal  factors,  and  di 
vergences  of  view  and  aim,  for  they  must  be  kept 
constantly  in  mind  in  considering  what  was  now  to 
occur.  They  account  for  much  otherwise  quite  inex 
plicable.  In  history  as  a  whole, — the  inexhaustible 
story  of  man's  development  from  what  he  once  was 
to  what  he  now  is, — the  individual  as  a  factor  is  so 
far  minimized  that  the  most  considerable  unit  might 
probably  have  been  left  out  of  the  account,  and  yet 
the  result  be  in  no  material  respect  other  than  it  is. 
Exceptional  forces  and  individual  traits  counterbal 
ance  each  other,  tending  always  to  average  results. 
But  with  episodes  it  is  not  so.  In  them  the  individ 
ual  has  free  play ;  and,  accordingly,  the  personal 


American  Civil    War  and   War  in  tJie   Transvaal.    79 

factor  counts.  The  Treaty  of  Washington  was  an 
episode.  In  dealing  with  the  conditions  which  led 
up  to  that  treaty  the  minds  of  Charles  Sumner  and 
Hamilton  Fish  naturally  moved  on  different  lines  ; 
while  it  so  chanced  that  the  likes  and  dislikes,  the 
objectives,  surroundings  and  methods  of  Ulysses  S. 
Grant, —  disturbing  factors, — •  entered  largely  into 
the  result. 

IV 

In  the  years  1869  and  1870,  as  indeed  through 
out  his  public  life,  Charles  Sumner  was  intent  on 
the  African,  and  questions  of  human  right ;  while, 
in  the  matter  of  territorial  expansion,  looking 
vaguely  to  Canada  and  a  Greater  American  policy,  he 
would  instinctively  have  been  opposed  to  any  move 
ment  in  the  direction  of  the  tropics.  President 
Grant,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  beginning  of  his 
first  presidential  term,  was  bent  on  early  acquisi 
tions  in  the  West  Indies,  and  disposed  to  adopt  a 
summary  tone  towards  Spain.  As  respects  Great 
Britain,  his  attitude,  one  of  comparative  indifference, 
admitted  of  almost  indefinite  shaping.  Mr.  Fish, 
new,  and  not  comfortable,  in  his  unsolicited  posi 
tion,  was  inclined  to  be  influenced, — almost  to  be 
led,  by  Sumner  ;  but  he  at  the  same  time  looked  to 
Grant  as  the  head  of  the  government,  in  which  he 
himself  held  the  place  of  precedence,  and  was  dis 
posed  to  give  to  his  chief  a  thoroughly  loyal  sup 
port.  New  in  their  positions,  and  new  to  each  other, 
they  were  all  about  to  find  their  bearings.  Under 
such  circumstances,  a  stranger  in  the  State  Depart 
ment  and  almost  a  novice  on  questions  of  interna- 


So      Before  and  After  tJie   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

tional  law,  the  new  Secretary  seems  in  some  degree 
to  have  turned  to  Caleb  Cifshing ;  nor  could  he 
among  men  then  available  at  Washington  have 
found  a  more  competent  or  tactful  adviser.  Of  de 
cided  parts,  with  good  attainments  and  remarkable 
powers  of  acquisition,  Caleb  dishing  was  a  man  of 
large  experience,  much  human  insight,  and,  while 
given  to  manipulation,  he  was  not  hampered  either 
in  council  or  in  action  by  any  excess  of  moral  sensi 
bility.  He  understood  the  situation  ;  and  he  under 
stood  Mr.  Sumner. 

In  the  matter  of  the  Queen's  proclamation  of 
May,  1861,  and  the  concession  of  belligerent  rights, 
it  was  thus  a  case  of  alternatives, — the  rule  of  Brit 
ish  accountability  to  be  laid  down  for  the  new  ad 
ministration  must  not  stand  in  the  way  of  a  more 
than  possible  line  of  aggressive  action  towards 
Spain.  That  the  instructions  now  prepared  for 
Mr.  Motley  were  more  rational  than  the  positions 
assumed  by  Mr.  Sumner  four  weeks  before  must  be 
admitted ;  they  were  also  more  in  accordance  with 
recognized  principles  of  international  law.  In  his 
Senate  speech  Mr.  Sumner  had  contended  that,  be 
cause  of  the  proclamation,  the  liability  of  Great  Britain 
must  be  fixed  at  amounts  scarcely  calculable  in 
money, — a  damage  "immense and  infinite, — "  a  mas 
sive  grievance,"  all  dependent  on  "  this  extraordinary 
manifesto,"  the  "  ill-omened,"  the  "  fatal  "  proclama 
tion  which  "had  opened  the  floodgates  to  infinite 
woes."  Mr.  Fish,  with  the  Cuba  situation  obviously 
in  mind,  declared,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  President 
recognized  "  the  right  of  every  power,  when  a  civil 
conflict  has  arisen  in  another  state,  and  has  attained  a 
sufficient  complexity,  magnitude  and  completeness, 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    81 

to  define  its  own  relations  and  those  of  its  citizens 
and  subjects  toward  the  parties  to  the  conflict,  so  far 
as  their  rights  and  interests  are  necessarily  affected 
by  the  conflict."  Then  followed  some  saving  clauses, 
carefully  framed ;  but,  as  already  foreshadowed  in 
Mr.  Fish's  correspondence,  the  precipitate  character 
of  the  "unfriendly"  proclamation  was  dwelt  upon 
only  as  showing  "  the  beginning  and  the  animus  of 
that  course  of  conduct  which  resulted  so  disastrously 
to  the  United  States."  In  the  original  draft,  these 
instructions  had  been  even  more  explicit  on  this 
point ;  and,  for  that  reason,  had  led  to  a  charac 
teristic  remonstrance  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Sumner. 
Having  early  got  some  inkling  of  their  character  he 
at  once  went  to  the  State  Department,  and  there, 
speaking  to  the  Assistant  Secretary  in  a  loud  voice, 
tremulous  and  vibrating  with  excitement,  he  had 
exclaimed — "  Is  it  the  purpose  of  this  Administra 
tion  to  sacrifice  me, — me  a  Senator  from  Massachu 
setts  ?  " — and  later  he  wrote  to  the  Secretary  himself 
declaring  his  dissent  "from  the  course  proposed," 
on  the  ground  that  "  as  chairman  of  the  Senate 
Committee  I  ought  not  in  any  way  to  be  a  party  to 
a  statement  which  abandons  or  enfeebles  any  of  the 
just  grounds  of  my  country  as  already  expounded 
by  Seward,  Adams,  and  myself."  To  this  more 
than  merely  implied  threat,  Mr.  Fish  had  contented 
himself  by  replying  that  whether  the  modifications 
were  of  greater  or  of  less  significance,  they  could 
"hardly  be  of  sufficient  importance  to  break  up  an 
effort  at  negotiation,  or  to  break  down  an  Admin 
istration"  Mr.  Gushing  here  intervened,  and  his 
skilful  hand  temporarily  adjusted  the  difficulty.  The 
adjustment  was,  however,  only  temporary.  The 


82      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

inevitable   could  not  be   averted.      Coming  events 
already  cast  their  shadow  before. 

To  revive  in  detail  the  painful  Motley  imbroglio 
of  1870  is  not  necessary  for  present  purposes.  Suf 
fice  it  to  say  that,  when  he  reached  England,  Mr. 
Motley  was,  apparently,  quite  unable  to  clear  his 
mind  of  what  might,  perhaps,  not  inaptly  be  de 
scribed  as  the  Proclamation  Legend  ;  and,  both  in 
his  official  interviews  with  the  British  Foreign  Sec 
retary  and  in  social  talk,  he  failed  to  follow,  and  ap 
parently  did  not  grasp,  the  spirit  of  his  instructions. 
Confessing  to  a  "  despondent  feeling  "  as  to  the 
"possibility  of  the  two  nations  ever  understanding 
each  other  or  looking  into  each  other's  hearts,"  in 
his  first  interview  with  Lord  Clarendon  he  fell  heavily 
back  on  the  ubiquitous  and  everlasting  proclamation, 
as  the  "  fountain  head  of  the  disasters  which  had  been 
caused  to  the  American  people,  both  individually 
and  collectively."  Historically  untrue  and  diplo 
matically  injudicious,  this  tone  and  stand  evinced,  on 
the  part  of  Mr.  Motley,  an  inability  to  see  things 
in  connection  with  his  mission  otherwise  than  as 
seen  by  Mr.  Sumner.  His  misapprehension  of 
the  objects  his  official  superior  had  in  view  was 
obvious  and  complete.  As  it  was  almost  imme 
diately  decided  that,  so  far  as  the  settlement  of  out 
standing  difficulties  between  the  two  nations  was 
concerned,  any  future  negotiations  should  be  con 
ducted  in  Washington,  Mr.  Motley  ceased  at  this 
point  to  be  a  considerable  factor  in  the  course  of 
events. 

In  the  mean  time  an  extremely  adroit,  though 
unofficial,  intermediary  had  appeared  on  the  stage. 
His  presence  almost  immediately  made  itself  felt. 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    83 

Born  in  Scotland  in  1820,  and  emigrating  with  his 
parents  to  America  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Sir  John 
Rose,  or  Mr.  Rose  as  he  still  was  in  1869,  had  been 
for  a  number  of  years  prominent  in  Canadian  public 
life.  A  natural  diplomat  of  a  high  order,  he  was  at 
this  time  acting  as  British  commissioner  on  the 
joint  tribunal  provided  by  the  treaty  of  1863  to  ar 
bitrate  the  claims  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  and  Puget 
Sound  Companies.  Mr.  Caleb  dishing  was  of 
counsel  in  that  business,  and  relations  of  a  friendly 
nature  grew  up  between  him  and  the  British  arbi 
trator.  Whether  already  privately  authorized  so  to 
do  or  not,  Mr.  Rose,  who  was  very  solicitous  of  an 
arrangement  between  the  two  nations,  skilfully  in 
stilled  into  Mr.  dishing-  a  belief  that  he,  Mr.  Rose, 
might  be  of  use  in  the  delicate  work  of  reopening 
negotiations  on  new  lines.  Accordingly  on  the 
26th  of  June, — only  eight  weeks  after  the  rejection 
of  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention,  and  sixteen 
days  after  Mr.  Motley's  despondent  interview  with 
Lord  Clarendon  just  referred  to, — Mr.  dishing, 
then  in  Washington,  wrote  to  Mr.  Rose,  in  Ottawa. 
Referring  to  previous  letters  between  them,  he  now 
told  him  that  he  had  that  day  seen  Secretary  Fish, 
and  had  arranged  for  Mr.  Rose  to  meet  him.  "  I 
am,"  he  wrote,  "  not  sanguine  of  immediate  conclu 
sion  of  such  a  treaty  as  either  you  or  I  might  de 
sire.  But  I  think  the  time  has  arrived  to  commence^ 
trusting  that  discretion,  patience  and  good  will  on 
both  sides  may  eventuate,  in  this  important  matter, 
satisfactorily  to  the  two  governments."  Accord- 

*  In  this  letter  Mr.  Gushing  significantly  went  on  to  say — "  In  view 
of  the  disposition  which  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  has  recently 
shown  to  assume  more  than  its  due,  or  at  least  than  its  usual  part, 


84      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

ingly,  on  the  8th  of  July,  Mr.  Rose  called  on  the 
Secretary  in  Washington.  The  first  of  the  inter 
views  which  led  up  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington 
two  years  later  took  place  next  day  at  Mr.  Fish's 
dinner  table.  The  basis  of  a  settlement  was  then 
discussed,  and  that  subsequently  reached  outlined 
by  Mr.  Fish,  who  laid  especial  emphasis  on  the 
necessity  of  <r  some  kind  expression  of  regret  "  on 
the  part  of  Great  Britain  over  the  course  pursued 
in  the  Civil  War.  The  two  even  went  so  far  as  to 
consider  the  details  of  negotiation.  The  expedi 
ency  of  a  special  commission  to  dispose  of  the  mat 
ter  ^was  discussed,  and  the  names  of  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  and  John  Bright  were  considered  in  connec 
tion  therewith. 

Immediately  after  this  interview  Mr.  Rose  went  to 
England.  His  own  official  and  personal  relations 
with  men  high  in  influence  were  close  ;  and,  more 
over,  another  personage  of  rapidly  growing  con 
sequence  in  English  ministerial  circles  was  now  at 
work  laboring  earnestly  and  assiduously  to  promote 
an  adjustment.  In  1869  William  E.  Forster  was 
fast  rising  into  the  first  rank  among  English  public 
men.  President  of  the  Privy  Council  in  Mr.  Glad 
stone's  first  ministry,  he  was  at  this  juncture  acting 
as  Minister  of  Education.  Nine  years  later,  in  the 
second  Gladstone  ministry,  he  was  to  occupy  the 
crucial  position  of  Secretary  for  Ireland.  Always, 
from  his  first  entrance  into  public  life  in  1861,  an 

in  the  determination  of  international  questions,  you  will  appreciate 
the  unreadiness  of  the  Executive,  at  the  present  time,  to  take  upon 
itself  any  spontaneous  or  doubtful  ventures,  especially  on  the  side 
of  England."  The  reference  was,  of  course,  to  Mr.  Sumner,  and 
pointed  to  an  already  developing  source  of  trouble.  Grant's  first 
presidential  term  was  yet  in  its  fourth  month  only. 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.  85 

earnest,  outspoken,  consistent  and  insistent  friend 
of  democratic  United  States, — during  the  Civil 
War  the  one  in  that  small  group  of  friends  held  by 
Mr.  Adams  in  "most  esteem," — Mr.  Forster  was 
now  strenous  in  his  advocacy  of  a  broad  settlement 
of  the  issues  arising  out  of  the  Rebellion,  and  the 
honest  admission  by  Great  Britain  of  the  ill-con 
sidered  policy  then  pursued.  His  name  also  had 
been  discussed  by  Mr.  Fish  and  Mr.  Rose  as  one  of 
the  proposed  special  mission. 

Within  less  than  two  months,  therefore,  of  the 
rejection  of  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention,  the 
Treaty  of  Washington  was  in  the  air  ;  and,  curiously 
enough,  at  the  very  time  Mr.  Motley  in  London 
was  confessing  to  Lord  Clarendon  his  "  despondent 
feeling"  in  view  of  the  "  path  surrounded  by  per 
ils,"  and  talking  of  "  grave  and  disastrous  misun 
derstandings  and  cruel  wars,"  Secretary  Fish  and 
Mr.  Rose,  comfortably  seated  at  a  dinner  table  in 
Washington,  were  quietly  paving  the  way  to  a 
complete  understanding.  Nothing  more  occurred 
during  that  summer;  but  in  the  course  of  it  Mr. 
Fish  thus  expressed  his  views  in  a  letter  to  a  cor 
respondent, — an  expression  at  this  early  date  to 
which  subsequent  events  lent  much  significance  :— 
"  The  two  English-speaking  progressive  liberal 
Governments  of  the  world  should  not,  must  not,  be 
divided — better  let  this  question  rest  for  some 
years  even  (if  that  be  necessary)  than  risk  failure 
in  another  attempt  at  settlement.  I  do  not  say  this 
because  I  wish  to  postpone  a  settlement — on  the 
contrary,  I  should  esteem  it  the  greatest  glory,  and 
greatest  happiness  of  my  life,  if  it  could  be  settled 
while  I  remain  in  official  position ;  and  I  should 


86      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washijigton  : 

esteem  it  the  greatest  benefit  to  my  country  to 
bring  it  to  an  early  settlement.  *  *  *  I  want 
to  have  the  question  settled.  I  would  not,  if  I  could, 
impose  any  humiliating  condition  on  Great  Britain. 
I  would  not  be  a  party  to  anything  that  proposes 
to  '  threaten  '  her.  I  believe  that  she  is  great 
enough  to  be  just ;  and  I  trust  that  she  is  wise 
enough  to  maintain  her  own  greatness.  No  great 
ness  is  inconsistent  with  some  errors.  Mr.  Bright 
thinks  she  was  drawn  into  errors — so  do  we.  If 
she  can  be  brought  to  think  so,  it  will  not  be  neces 
sary  for  her  to  say  so ; — at  least  not  to  say  it  very 
loudly.  It  may  be  said  by  a  definition  of  what  shall 
be  Maritime  International  Law  in  the  future,  and  a 
few  kind  words.  She  will  want  in  the  future  what 
we  have  claimed.  Thus  she  will  be  benefited— 
we  satisfied. "/  Written  in  the  early  days  of  Sep 
tember,  1870,  this  letter  set  forth  clearly  the  posi 
tion  of  Mr.  Fish  ;  it  also  correctly  foreshadowed  the 
course  of  the  diplomacy  which  had  already  been 
entered  upon. 

During  the  autumn  of  1869  the  Alabama  claims, 
and  the  unsatisfactory  relations  of  the  country  with 
Great  Britain,  were  discussed  at  more  than  one 
Cabinet  meeting  in  Washington.  At  this  time, 
while  the  Secretary  of  State  professed  himself  as 
ready  to  negotiate  whenever  England  came  forward 
with  a  fairly  satisfactory  proposition,  the  President 
favored  a  policy  of  delay.  Presently,  Mr.  Rose  was 
again  heard  from.  The  letter  he  now  wrote  has  since 
often  been  referred  to  and  much  commented  upon, 
though  it  was  over  twenty  years  before  its  author 
ship  was  revealed.  In  it  he  said, — "  I  have  had 
conversations  in  more  than  one  quarter, — which 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    87 

you  will  readily  understand  without  my  naming 
them,  and  have  conveyed  my  oiun  belief,  that  a 
kindly  word,  or  an  expression  of  regret,  such  as 
would  not  involve  an  acknowledgment  of  wrong, 
was  likely  to  be  more  potential  than  the  most  irre 
fragable  reasoning  on  principles  of  international 
law."  Mr.  Rose  then  went  on  to  touch  upon  a 
very  delicate  topic, — Mr.  Motley's  general  London 
presentation  of  his  country's  attitude.  "  Is  your 
representative  here,"  he  added,  "  a  gentleman  of 
the  most  conciliatory  spirit?  *  Does  he  not 

—perhaps  naturally — let  the  fear  of  imitating  his 
predecessor  influence  his  course  so  as  to  make  his 
initiative  hardly  as  much  characterized  by  consider 
ation  for  the  sensibilities  of  the  people  of  this  coun 
try,  as  of  his  own.  I  think  I  understood 
you  to  say,  that  you  thought  negotiations  would 
be  more  like  to  be  attended  with  satisfactory  re 
sults,  if  they  were  transferred  to,  and  were  con 
cluded  at,  Washington  ;  because  you  could  from 
time  to  time  communicate  confidentially  with  lead 
ing  Senators,  and  know  how  far  you  could  carry 
that  body  with  you.  *  But  again  is  your 
representative  of  that  mind  ? — and  how  is  it  to  be 
brought  about  ?  By  a  new,  or  a  special  envoy — as 
you  spoke  of — or  quietly  through  Mr.  Thornton  ? 
If  I  am  right  in  my  impression  that  you 
would  prefer  Washington  and  a  new  man,  and  you 
think  it  worth  while  to  enable  me  to  repeat  that 
suggestion  as  one  from  myself  in  the  proper  quarter, 
a  line  from  you — or  if  you  prefer  it,  a  word  by  the 
cable,  will  enable  me  to  do  so." 

Eight  days  later,  on  the  nth  of  the  same  month, 
Mr.  Rose  again  wrote  to  Mr.  Fish,  calling  his  at- 


88      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

tention  to  the  speech  of  Mr.  Gladstone  at  the  Guild 
hall,  which,  he  said,  "  hardly  conveys  the  impres 
sion  his  tone  conveyed  with  reference  to  United 
States  affairs.  There  was  an  earnest  tone  of  friend 
ship  that  is  hardly  reproduced." 

At  the  time  these  letters  reached  Mr.  Fish  the 
relations  between  him  and  Mr.  Sumner  were  close 
and  still  friendly.  The  Secretary  spoke  to  the 
Senator  freely  of  Mr.  Rose's  visits,  and  consulted 
with  him  over  every  step  taken.  Knowing  that 
Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr.  Motley  were  constantly  inter 
changing"  letters,  he  took  occasion  to  advise  Mr. 
Sumner  of  the  intimations  which  had  thus  reached 
him,  giving,  of  course,  no  names,  but  saying  simply 
that  they  were  from  a  reliable  quarter.  The  well- 
meant  hint  was  more  than  disregarded,  Mr.  Sumner 
contenting  himself  with  contemptuous  references  to 
the  once  celebrated  McCracken  episode.  Years 
afterwards,  in  the  same  spirit,  Mr.  Motley's  biog 
rapher  sneeringly  referred  to  the  still  unnamed 
writer  of  the  Rose  letters  as  "  a  faithless  friend,  a 
disguised  enemy,  a  secret  emissary  or  an  injudicious 
alarmist."  * 

The  reply  of  Mr.  Fish  to  the  letters  of  Mr.  Rose 
revealed  the  difficulties  of  the  Secretary's  position. 
The  individuality  of  Mr.  Sumner  made  itself  felt  at 
every  point.  In  London,  Mr.  Motley  reflected  the 
views  of  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs  rather  than  those  of  the  Secretary 
of  State ;  in  Washington,  the  personal  relations  of 
Mr.  Sumner  with  the  British  Minister  were  such  as 
to  render  the  latter  undesirable  at  least  as  a  me- 

*  O.  W.  Holmes,  Memoir  of  John  Lothrop  Motley  (1879),  pp. 
178-9. 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    89 

dium  of  negotiation.  Referring  first  to  his  intima 
tions  concerning  Mr.  Motley,  Mr.  Fish  replied  to 
Mr.  Rose  as  follows  :— 

"  Your  questions  respecting  our  Minister,  I  fear 
may  have  been  justified  by  some  indiscretion  of  ex 
pression,  or  of  manner,  but  I  hope  only  indiscre 
tions  of  that  nature.  Intimations  of  such  had 
reached  me.  I  have  reason  to  hope  that  if  there 
have  been  such  manifestations  they  may  not  recur. 
Whatever  there  may  have  appeared,  I  cannot  doubt 
his  desire  to  aid  in  bringing  the  two  Governments 
into  perfect  accord.  I  have  the  highest 

regard  for  Mr.  Thornton,  and  find  him  in  all  my  in 
tercourse,  courteous,  frank,  and  true.  A  gentle 
man  with  whom  I  deal  and  treat  with  the  most  un 
reserved  confidence.  He  had,  however,  given 
offence  to  Mr.  Sumner  (chairman  of  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations),  whose  position 
with  reference  to  any  future  negotiation  you  un 
derstand.  I  chance  to  know  that  Mr.  Sumner  feels 
deeply  aggrieved  by  some  things  which  Mr.  Thorn 
ton  has  written  home,  and  although  he  would  not 
consciously  allow  a  personal  grief  of  that  nature  to 
prejudice  his  action  in  an  official  intercourse  with 
the  representative  of  a  State,  he  might  uncon 
sciously  be  led  to  criticism  unfavorable  to  positions 
which  would  be  viewed  differently,  if  occupied  by 
some  other  person.  *  *  *  I  am  very  decidedly 
of  opinion  that  whenever  negotiations  are  to  be  re 
newed,  they  would  be  more  likely  to  result  favor 
ably  here  than  in  London.  I  have  so  instructed 
Mr.  Motley  to  say,  if  he  be  questioned  on  the  sub- 
ject." 

Such  was  the  posture  of  affairs  at  the  close  of  the 


90      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

year  1869.  Events  now  moved  rapidly,  and  the 
general  situation  became  more  and  more  compli 
cated.  In  Europe,  the  war-clouds  which  preceded 
the  Franco-Prussian  storm-burst  of  1870  were 
gathering  ;  in  America,  President  Grant  was,  per 
sistently  as  earnestly,  pressing  his  schemes  of  West 
Indian  annexation.  In  London,  Mr.  Rose  was  in 
formally  sounding  the  members  of  the  government 
to  ascertain  how  far  they  were  willing  to  go ;  in 
Washington,  Mr.  Thornton  was  pressing  the  Sec 
retary  "  with  much  earnestness  to  give  him  an  inti 
mation  of  what  would  be  accepted  "  by  the  United 
States.  The  outbreak  of  hostilities  between  France 
and  Germany  six  months  later  brought  matters,  so 
far  as  Great  Britain  was  concerned,  fairly  to  a  crisis. 
In  presence  of  serious  continental  complications,— 
in  imminent  danger  of  being  drawn  into  the  vortex 
of  conflict, — Great  Britain  found  itself  face  to  face 
with  the  Alabama  precedents.  Like  "  blood-bol- 
ter'd "  Banquo,  they  would  not  down.  The  posi 
tion  was  one  not  likely  to  escape  the  keen  eye  of 
Prince  Bismarck.  England's  hands  were  tied.  In 
ternationally,  she  was  obviously  a  negligible  quan 
tity.  The  principles  laid  down  and  precedents  es 
tablished  only  six  years  before  were  patent, — fresh 
in  the  minds  of  all.  Her  Majesty's  government 
remembered  them  ;  Prince  Bismarck  was  advised 
of  them  ;  each  was  well  aware  of  the  other's  knowl 
edge.  The  Gladstone  ministry  were  accordingly 
in  an  extraordinarily  receptive  mental  condition. 

Such  being  the  state  of  affairs  in  Europe,  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  the  situation  complicated  itself 
no  less  rapidly.  It  was  in  the  early  days  of  Janu 
ary  that  President  Grant  dropped  in  one  evening 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.   91 

at  Mr.  Sumner's  house,  while  the  latter  was  at  din 
ner  with  some  friends,  and  sought  to  enlist  the  in 
fluence  of  the  chairman  of  the  "  Senate  Judiciary 
Committee,"  as  he  would  designate  him,  in  support 
of  the  scheme  for  the  annexation  of  San  Domingo. 
What  followed  is  familiar  history.  During  the 
immediately  ensuing  months  there  took  place  a 
complete  division  between  the  two  men.  They 
thereafter  became  not  only  politically  opposed,  but 
bitter  personal  enemies. 

To  all  outward  appearances  during  those  months 
no  advance  whatever  was  being  made  towards  a 
British  adjustment ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  both  time 
and  conditions  were  now  ripe  for  it.  In  the  early 
days  of  September,  1870,  the  Imperial  government 
of  France  collapsed  at  Sedan;  and  on  the  13th  of 
that  month  M.  Thiers  arrived  in  London  soliciting 
on  behalf  of  the  new  French  republic  the  aid  and 
good  offices  of  Great  Britain.  His  mission  was,  of 
course,  fruitless  ;  but,  none  the  less,  it  could  not 
but  emphasize  the  difficulty  of  England  s  position. 
If  it  failed  so  to  do,  a  forcible  reminder  from  Amer 
ica  was  imminent,  and  followed  almost  immediately. 
In  December,  with  Paris  blockaded  by  the  Prus 
sians,  France  was  brought  face  to  face  with  dismem 
berment.  The  general  European  situation  was 
from  an  English  point  of  view  disquieting  in  the 
extreme.  At  just  this  juncture,  within  one  week 
of  the  day  on  which  his  Parliament  called  on  the 
Prussian  King  to  become  Emperor  of  Germany, 
and  the  delegate  government,  to  avoid  a  German 
army  operating  in  the  heart  of  France,  removed  its 
sittings  from  Tours  to  Bordeaux,  —  at  just  this 
juncture  (December  5th)  President  Grant  took  oc- 


92      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

casion  to  incorporate  the  following  passage  into  his 
annual  message:— 

"  I  regret  to  say  that  no  conclusion  has  been 
reached  for  the  adjustment  of  the  claims  against 
Great  Britain  growing  out  of  the  course  adopted 
by  that  Government  during  the  rebellion.  The 
cabinet  of  London,  so  far  as  its  views  have  been 
expressed,  does  not  appear  to  be  willing  to  concede 
that  Her  Majesty's  Government  was  guilty  of  any 
negligence,  or  did  or  permitted  any  act  during  the 
war  by  which  the  United  States  has  just  cause  of 
complaint.  Our  firm  and  unalterable  convictions 
are  directly  the  reverse.  I  therefore  recommend 
to  Congress  to  authorize  the  appointment  of  a  com 
mission  to  take  proof  of  the  amount  and  the  owner 
ship  of  these  several  claims,  on  notice  to  the  repre 
sentative  of  Her  Majesty  at  Washington,  and  that 
authority  be  given  for  the  settlement  of  these  claims 
by  the  United  States,  so  that  the  Government  shall 
have  the  ownership  of  the  private  claims,  as  well  as 
the  responsible  control  of  all  the  demands  against 
Great  Britain.  It  can  not  be  necessary  to  add  that 
whenever  Her  Majesty's  Government  shall  enter 
tain  a  desire  for  a  full  and  friendly  adjustment  of 
these  claims  the  United  States  will  enter  upon  their 
consideration  with  an  earnest  desire  for  a  conclusion 
consistent  with  the  honor  and  dignity  of  both  na- 
.tions." 

The  hint  thus  forcibly  given  was  not  lost  in  Lon 
don.  The  educational  process  was  now  complete. 
The  message,  or  that  portion  of  it  which  most  in 
terested  the  British  public,  appeared  in  the  London 
journals  of  December  6th,  and  was  widely  com 
mented  upon.  Exactly  five  weeks  later,  on  the  9th 


American  Civil    War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    93 

of  January,  1871,  Mr.  Rose  was  again  in  Washing 
ton.  Coming  ostensibly  on  business  relating  to  the 
Dominion  of  Canada,  he  was  in  reality  now  at  last 
empowered  to  open  negotiations  looking  to  an  im 
mediate  settlement.  The  very  evening  of  the  day 
he  arrived  Mr.  Rose  dined  with  Mr.  Fish.  The 
after-dinner  talk  between  the  two,  lasting  some  five 
or  six  hours,  resulted  in  a  confidential  memoran 
dum.  More  carefully  formulated  by  Mr.  Rose  the 
following  day,  this  paper  reached  Mr.  Fish  on  the 
nth  of  January.  He  expressed  himself,  on  ac 
knowledging  its  receipt,  as  inspired  with  hope. 

Hamilton  Fish  was  neither  an  ambitious  nor  an 
imaginative  man.  Though  he  held  the  position  of 
Secretary  of  State  during  both  of  the  Grant  admin 
istrations,  he  did  so  with  a  genuine  and  well-under 
stood  reluctance,  and  was  always  contemplating 
an  early  retirement.  At  this  juncture,  however, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  his  ambition  was  fired. 
That  which  a  year  before  he  had  pronounced  as, 
among  things  possible,  "  the  greatest  glory  and 
the  greatest  happiness  of  his  life  "  was  within  his 
reach.  He  was  to  be  the  official  medium  through 
which  a  settlement  of  the  questions  between  "  the 
two  English-speaking,  progressive-liberal "  coun 
tries  was  to  be  effected.  That  was  to  be  his  mon 
ument.  To  a  certain  extent,  also,  conditions  fa 
vored  him.  Mr.  Sumner  and  his  Senate  speech 
on  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  were  the 
great  obstacles  in  the  way.  For,  as  Mr.  Fish  had 
himself  expressed  it  a  year  previous, — "  The  elo 
quence,  and  the  display  of  learning  and  of  research 
in  [that)  speech,  and,  —  perhaps  above  all,  —  the 
gratification  of  the  laudable  pride  of  a  people  in  be- 


94      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

ing  told  of  the  magnitude  of  wealth  in  reserve  for 
them  in  the  way  of  damages  tlue  from  a  wealthy 
debtor,  captivated  some,  and  deluded  more."  Of 
this  wide-spread  popular  feeling,  reinforced  by  the 
anti-British  and  Fenian  sentiment  then  very  preva 
lent,  account  had  to  be  taken.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Simmer's  lukewarmness  as  respects  any 
settlement  at  that  time,  much  more  his  possible  op 
position  to  one  originating  with  the  State  Depart 
ment,  indirectly  forwarded  that  result.  The  Presi 
dent  and  the  Massachusetts  Senator  were  now  in 
open  conflict  over  the  former's  policy  of  West  Ind 
ian  expansion  ;  and  in  that  struggle  Secretary  Fish 
had  most  properly,  if  he  remained  in  office,  taken 
sides  with  his  official  head.  The  Motley  imbroglio 
had  followed.  With  the  most  friendly  feeling  towards 
Mr.  Motley  personally,  and  sincerely  desirous  of 
avoiding  so  far  as  possible  any  difficulty  with  Mr. 
Sumner,  Mr.  Fish's  expressed  wish  was  to  continue 
Mr.  Motley  in  his  position,  taking  from  him  all  part 
in  the  proposed  negotiation  and  giving  him  implicit 
instructions  in  no  way  to  refer  to  it,  or  seek  to  in 
fluence  it.  He  was  practically  to  be  reduced  to  a 
functional  representative.  To  this  the  President 
would  not  assent.  He  insisted  that  Mr.  Motley 
represented  Mr.  Sumner  more  than  he  did  the  Ad 
ministration,  and  he  declared  in  a  Cabinet  meeting, 
at  which  the  matter  was  discussed,  that  he  would 
"  not  allow  Sumner  to  ride  over"  him.  The  Sec 
retary  continued  to  plead  and  urge,  but  in  vain. 
The  President  was  implacable.  It  was  then  sug 
gested  that  Mr.  Sumner  should  himself  be  nomi 
nated  to  succeed  Motley,  and  Gen.  Butler  and  Mr. 
Cameron  called  on  the  Secretary  to  advocate  this 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    95 

solution  of  the  difficulty.  They  pronounced  Sum- 
ner  impractical  and  arrogant,  and  urged  that  he 
should  be  got  out  of  the  way  by  any  practicable 
method.  This  suggestion  also  was  discussed  at  a 
Cabinet  meeting,  and  the  President  expressed  a 
willingness  to  make  the  nomination  on  condition 
that  Sumner  would  resign  from  the  Senate  ;  but 
he  also  intimated  a  grim  determination  to  remove 
him  from  his  new  office  as  soon  as  he  had  been 
confirmed  in  it.  At  last  Mr.  Fish  was  compelled  to 
yield  ;  and,  under  the  President's  implicit  direction, 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Motley  a  private  letter,  couched  in 
the  most  friendly  language,  in  which  he  intimated 
as  clearly  as  he  could  that  so  doing  was  most  pain 
ful  to  him,  but  he  must  ask  for  a  resignation.  The 
whole  transaction  has  since  been  exhaustively  dis 
cussed,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  revive  it.  It  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  what  was  then  done,  was  done 
by  Gen.  Grant's  imperative  order,  and  solely  be 
cause  of  Mr.  Motley's  intimate  personal  relations 
with  Mr.  Sumner,  and  the  latter's  opposition  to  the 
President's  Dominican  policy.  The  urgent  and  re 
peated  remonstrances  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
were  of  no  avail.  A  victim  of  political  mischance, 
Mr.  Motley  was  thus  doomed  to  illustrate  the  truth 
of  Hamlet's  remark  as  to  the  danger  incurred  by 
him  of  lesser  weight  who  chances 

"  Between  the  pass  and  fell  incensed  points 
Of  mighty  opposites." 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that,  in  view  of  the  close 
personal  relations  existing  between  Mr.  Sumner 
and  Mr.  Motley,  and  their  constant  interchange  of 
letters  of  the  most  confidential  character,  it  is  not 


96      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

easy  to  see  how  the  latter  could  have  been  allowed 
to  remain  at  London,  the  supposed  representative 
of  the  government,  with  the  Massachusetts  Senator 
in  open  opposition  to  the  Administration.  In  view 
of  the  renewal  of  active  negotiations,  the  estrange 
ment  of  the  one  apparently  necessitated  the  dis 
placement  of  the  other. 

The  anger  of  the  President  towards  the  Massa 
chusetts  Senator  now  knew  no  bounds  ;  for  those 
about  the  White  House,  holding  there  confidential 
relations,  openly  asserted  that  Mr.  Sumner  had 
more  than  intimated  that  that  he,  Grant,  was  intox 
icated  when,  early  in  January,  1870,  he  had  made 
his  memorable  after-dinner  call  at  his,  the  Senator's, 
house.  Mr.  Motley  refused  to  resign.  His  re 
moval  was  thereupon  ordered.  This  was  delayed 
as  long  as  possible  by  Mr.  Fish,  as  he  expected 
then  himself  shortly  to  retire,  and  was  more  than 
willing  to  leave  the  final  act  of  displacement  to  his 
successor.  At  the  last  moment  he  was,  however, 
prevailed  upon  to  continue  in  office,  sorely  against 
his  own  wishes;  and,  what  then,  as  respects  the 
English  mission,  occurred,  is  matter  of  record. 
That  the  patience  of  the  Secretary  had  been  sorely 
tried  during  the  intervening  time,  does  not  admit  of 
question.  To  this  subject,  and  the  probable  cause 
of  his  irritation,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  pres 
ently.  Unfortunately,  as  is  apt  to  be  the  case  with 
those  of  Netherlandish  blood,  though  slow  to  wrath, 
Mr.  Fish's  anger,  once  aroused,  was  neither  easily 
appeased  nor  kept  within  conventional  bounds;  and 
now  it  extended  beyond  its  immediate  cause.  He 
felt  aggrieved  over  the  course  pursued  by  Mr.  Mot 
ley.  In  it  he  saw  no  regard  for  the  difficulties  of 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    97 

the  position  in  which  he  himself  stood,  and  he  was 
especially  provoked  by  the  minister's  voluminous 
record  of  the  circumstances  attending  his  displace 
ment,  placed  by  him  on  the  files  of  the  Department, 
and  entitled  "End  of  Mission."  Accordingly,  Mr. 
Fish's  long-contained  anger  found  expression  in 
the  well-known  letter,  addressed  to  Mr.  Moran, 
secretary  of  the  Legation  at  London,  and  then  act 
ing  as  charg^  des  affaires.  This  letter,  in  a  first 
draught,  was  read  by  the  Secretary  to  the  Presi 
dent,  Vice- President  Colfax,  and  Mr.  Conkling  be 
fore  it  was  despatched;  and,  while  the  last  named 
gave  to  it  his  approval,  the  President  not  only  de 
clined  to  allow  certain  alterations  suggested  by  Mr. 
Colfax  to  be  made,  but  expressed  his  wish  that  not 
a  word  in  the  paper  be  changed. 

Immaterial  as  all  this  may  at  first  seem,  it  had  a 
close  and  important  bearing  on  the  negotiations  pre 
liminary  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  now  fairly 
initiated.  The  cabinet  had,  during  the  summer  of 
1870,  been  divided  over  the  Dominican  issue.  The 
Attorney-General,  E.  R.  Hoar,  had  opposed  the 
ratification  of  the  treaty,  and  the  President  there 
upon,  and  for  that  reason,  called  for  his  resigna 
tion.  In  advising  the  Secretary  of  State  of  this 
fact,  Gen.  Grant  took  occasion  to  express  his  sense 
of  the  support  Mr.  Fish  had  given  the  measure,  and 
to  intimate  his  sense  of  obligation  therefor.  He 
probably  felt  this  the  more,  as  he  was  not  un 
aware  that  Mr.  Fish  had  taken  the  course  he  did 
solely  from  a  sense  of  loyalty,  and  in  opposition 
to  his  own  better  judgment.  Mr.  Fish  looked  upon 
the  treaty  as  a  measure  of  policy  inaugurated  by 
the  head  of  the  Administration;  and,  after  the  pol- 


98      Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington  : 

icy  involved  was  fairly  entered  upon,  did  what  he 
properly  could  to  forward  it.  •  This,  also,  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that  the  treaty  had  been  most  irregu 
larly  negotiated  in  derogation  of  the  Department  of 
State,  and  that  it  was  in  charge  of  persons  whose 
standinghadin  no  degree  increased  public  confidence. 
But  such  loyalty  of  action  appealed  strongly  to  Gen 
eral  Grant,  and,  in  return  for  it,  he  stood  ready  to 
approve  any  policy  towards  Great  Britain  the  Secre 
tary  might  see  fit  to  recommend.  If,  moreover,  such 
a  policy  implied  of  necessity  a  conflict  with  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  it  would,  for  that  very  reason,  be  only  the  more 
acceptable.  The  President  thus  became  a  tower 
of  strength  in  the  proposed  negotiation. 

Still  while,  on  the  whole,  the  conditions  contrib 
uting  to  success  seemed  to  predominate,  the  fate  of 
the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  had  to  be  borne 
in  mind.  Mr.  Sumner  was  chairman  of  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations.  To  defeat  the 
result  of  a  negotiation,  it  was  necessary  to  control 
but  a  third  of  the  Senate  ;  and  his  influence  in  that 
body  had  recently  been  emphasized  by  the  rejection 
of  the  Dominican  treaty,  in  favor  of  which  the  Pres 
ident  had  made  use  of  every  form  of  argument  and 
inducement  within  the  power  of  an  Executive  to 
employ.  So,  after  the  proposal  of  Sir  John  Rose 
had  been  discussed  by  the  Secretary  with  Senator 
Conkling  and  Gen.  Schenck,  the  newly  designated 
minister  to  England,  it  was  agreed  that  Mr.  Fish 
should  seek  an  interview  with  the  Massachusetts 
Senator,  and;  by  a  great  show  of  consideration,  see 
if  he  could  not  be  induced  to  look  favorably  on  the 
scheme. 

What   ensued  was  not  only  historically  interest- 


American   Civil    War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   99 

ing,  but  to  the  last  degree  characteristic;  it  was, 
moreover,  altogether  unprecedented.  The  Secre 
tary  of  State  actually  sounded  the  way  to  an  inter 
view  with  the  chairman  of  a  Senate  Committee 
through  another  member  of  that  committee, — a  spe 
cies  of  "  mutual  friend," — the  interview  in  question 
to  take  place,  not  at  the  Department  of  State,  but 
at  the  house  of  the  autocratic  chairman.  The  meet 
ing  was  arranged  accordingly ;  and,  on  the  evening 
of  the  1 5th  of  January,  four  days  only  after  Sir  John 
Rose's  arrival  in  Washington,  Mr.  Fish,  with  Sir 
John's  confidential  memorandum  in  his  pocket, 
stood  at  Mr.  Sumner's  door.  In  the  meeting  that 
ensued  the  business  in  hand  was  discussed.  When 
the  Secretary  took  his  leave,  the  memorandum  of 
Sir  John  Rose  was  at  his  request  left  with  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  who  promised,  after  fuller  consideration,  shortly 
to  return  it. 

Then  in  due  time  followed  one  of  the  most  curi 
ous  incidents  in  diplomatic  history,  an  incident  than 
which  few  could  more  strikingly  illustrate  the 
changes  which  in  a  comparatively  short  space  of 
time  take  place  in  public  opinion,  and  the  estimate 
in  which  things  are  held.  Two  days  later,  on  the 
T  7th  of  January,  the  Rose  memorandum  was  re 
turned  to  Secretary  Fish  by  Senator  Sumner  with 
a  brief  note  embodying  this,  to  those  of  the  present 
time,  fairly  astounding  proposition  :  — 

"  First. — The  idea  of  Sir  John  Rose  is  that  all 
questions  and  causes  of  irritation  between  England 
and  the  United  States  should  be  removed  abso 
lutely  and  forever,  that  we  may  be  at  peace  really, 
and  good  neighbors,  and  to  this  end  all  points  of 
difference  should  be  considered  together.  Nothing 


ioo    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

could  be  better  than  this  initial  idea.  It  should  be 
the  starting-point. 

"  Second. — The  greatest  trouble,  if  not  peril,  be 
ing  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  and  disturbance,  is 
from  Fenianism,  which  is  excited  by  the  British  flag 
in  Canada.  Therefore  the  withdrawal  of  the  Brit 
ish  flag  cannot  be  abandoned  as  a  condition  or  pre 
liminary  of  such  a  settlement  as  is  now  proposed. 
To  make  the  settlement  complete,  the  withdrawal 
should  be  from  this  hemisphere,  including  provinces 
and  islands." 

V 

SINCE  his  death,  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  Charles 
Sumner  has  been  made  the  subject  of  one  of  the 
most  elaborate  biographies  in  the  language.  Pa 
tient  and  painstaking  to  the  last  degree,  nothing 
seems  to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  Mr.  Pierce,  and 
the  one  conspicuous  fault  of  his  work  is  its  extreme 
length.  It  is  conceived  and  executed  on  a  scale 

o 

which  assumes  in  the  reader  an  interest  in  the  sub 
ject,  and  an  indifference  to  toil,  commensurate  with 
those  of  the  author.  The  official  biography  of  Lin 
coln  by  Messrs.  Nicolay  and  Hay  is  not  inaptly 
called  by  them  "  A  History  "  ;  and  its  ten  solid  vol 
umes,  averaging  over  450  pages  each,  defy  perusal. 
Life  simply  does  not  suffice  for  literature  laid  out  on 
such  a  Brobdingnagian  scale;  all  sense  of  propor 
tion  is  absent  from  it.  Yet  the  ten  volumes  of 
the  Lincoln  include  but  a  quarter  part  more  read 
ing  matter  than  Mr.  Pierce's  four.  On  a  rough 
estimate,  it  is  computed  that  these  fourteen  volumes 
contain  some  two  million  words.  The  most  re- 


American   Civil  War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   101 

markable  and  highly  characteristic  memorandum 
just  quoted  is  expressed  in  about  22O;wo'r,ds  ;.and 
yet  for  it  Mr.  Pierce  found  no  space  m-his  four.mas^ 
sive  volumes.  He  refers  to  it  indeed;  showing  that 
he  was  aware  of  its  existence  ;  but  he  does  so 
briefly,  and  somewhat  lightly ;  treating  it  as  a  mat 
ter  of  small  moment,  and  no  significance.*  Mr. 
Storey,  in  his  smaller  biography  of  Sumner,  makes 
no  reference  at  all  to  it ;  apparently  it  failed  to  at 
tract  his  notice.  And  yet,  that  memorandum  is  of 
much  historical  significance.  A  species  of  electric 
flash,  it  reveals  what  then  was,  and  long  had  been, 
in  Sumner's  mind.  It  makes  intelligible  what 
would  otherwise  remain  well-nigh  incomprehensi 
ble  ;  if,  indeed,  not  altogether  so. 

To  those  of  this  generation, — especially  to  us  with 
the  war  in  South  Africa  going  on  before  our  eyes, 
—it  would  seem  as  if  the  first  perusal  of  that  memo 
randum  of  January  i;th  must  have  suggested  to 
Mr.  Fish  grave  doubts  as  to  Mr.  Sumner's  san 
ity.  It  reads  like  an  attempt  at  clumsy  ridicule. 
The  Secretary  of  State  had  gone  to  an  influential 
Senator  in  a  serious  spirit,  suggesting  a  business 
settlement  of  grave  international  complications  ; 
and  he  was  met  by  a  proposition  which  at  once  put 
negotiation  out  of  the  question.  What  could  the 
man  mean  ?  Apparently,  he  could  only  mean  that 
he  did  not  intend  to  permit  any  adjustment  to  be 
effected,  if  in  his  power  to  prevent.  Such  unques 
tionably  is  the  impression  this  paper  now  conveys. 
Meanwhile,  strange  as  it  seems,  when  received  it 
could  have  occasioned  Mr.  Fish  no  special  wonder  ; 
except,  perhaps,  in  its  wide  inclusiveness,  it  sug- 

*  Pierce's  Sumncr,  vol.  iv,  pp.  480-1. 


IO2    Before  and  After  the    Treaty  of  Washington  : 

gested  nothing  new,  nothing  altogether  beyond  the 
palevM  tf£?i$c>nable  expectation,  much  less  of  discus- 
sierrar;  ;It;htf;tfugiit  no  novel  consideration  into  de 
bate.  '  "Atm  vthis  statement,  surprising  now,  meas 
ures  the  revolution  in  sentiment  as  respects  de- 
pendencies- during  the  last  thirty  years. 

"From   1840  to,  say,  1870,  the  almost  universal 
belief  of  thoughtful  Englishmen  was  that  the  colo- 

o  o 

nies  contributed  nothing  or  little  to  the  strength  of 
England.  We  were  bound,  it  was  thought,  in 
honor,  to  protect  them  ;  the  mother  country  should 
see  that  her  children  were  on  the  road  to  become 
fit  for  independence  ;  the  day  for  separation  would 
inevitably  come ;  the  parting  when  it  took  place 
should  be  on  friendly  terms;  but  the  separation 
would  be  beneficial,  for  both  parent  and  children. 
Even  a  Conservative  minister  spoke,  or  wrote,  it  is 
said,  about  our  l  wretched  colonies/  To-day  the 
whole  tone  of  feeling  is  changed  ;  her  colonies  are, 
it  is  constantly  asserted,  both  the  glory  and  the 
strength  of  Great  Britain.  Not  the  extremest  Radi 
cal  ventures  to  hint  a  separation."  *  To  similar 
effect  another  authority,  an  American,  referring  to 
the  same  period,  says — "  We  find  England  declin 
ing  to  accept  New  Zealand  when  offered .  to  her 
by  English  settlers  ;  treating  Australia  as  a  finan 
cial  burden,  useful  only  as  a  dumping  ground  for 
criminals  ;  discussing  in  Parliament  whether  India 
be  worth  defending ;  questioning  the  value  of 
Hong-Kong,  and  even  refusing  to  be  responsible 
for  territories  in  South  Africa."  t  Even  as  late  as 

*Letter  signed  "An  Observer,"  dated  Oxford,  August  22,    1901, 
in  New  York  Nation  of  September  12,  1901. 

t  Poultney  Bigelow,  The  Children  of  the  Nations,  p.  332. 


American   Civil    War  and   War  in  tJie   Transvaal.    103 

1 88 1,  ten  years  after  the  negotiation  of  the  Treaty 
of  Washington,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 
feeling, — the  conviction  of  the  little  worth  of  de 
pendencies, — inspired  the  policy  pursued  towards 
the  South  African  republics  by  the  second  Glad 
stone  administration,  after  the  disaster  of  Majuba 
Hill. 

In  the  mind  of  Mr  Sumner,  the  ultimate,  and,  as 
he  in  1870  believed,  not  remote  withdrawal  of  all 
European  flags,  including,  of  course,  the  British, 
from  the  western  hemisphere,  was  a  logical  devel 
opment  of  the  Monroe  doctrine.  That  doctrine,  as 
originally  set  forth,  was  merely  a  first  enunciation, 
and  in  its  simplest  form,  of  a  principle  which  not 
only  admitted  of  great  development  but  was  in  the 
direct  line  of  what  is  known  as  Manifest  Destiny. 
Secretary  Seward's  Alaska  acquisition,  bringing  to 
an  end  Russian  dominion  in  America,  created  a 
precedent.  One  European  flag  then  disappeared 
from  the  New  World.  Those  of  Spain  and  Great 
Britain  only  remained  ;  and,  more  than  twenty 
years  before  Richard  Cobden  had  written  to  Sum 
ner,  "  I  agree  with  you  that  Nature  has  decided 
that  Canada  and  the  United  States  must  become 
one  for  all  purposes  of  inter-communication. 
If  the  people  of  Canada  are  tolerably  unanimous  in 
wishing  to  sever  the  very  slight  thread  which  now 
binds  them  to  this  country,  I  see  no  reason  why,  if 
good  faith  and  ordinary  temper  be  observed,  it 
should  not  be  done  amicably."  Charles  Sumner 
did  not  belong  to  the  Bismarckian  school  of  states 
manship, — he  was  no  welder  in  blood  and  iron  ; 
and  these  words  of  Cobden  furnished  the  key  of 
the  situation  as  it  lay  in  his  essentially  doctrinaire 


IO4    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  i 

mind.  He,  accordingly,  looked  forward  with  con 
fidence  to  the  incorporation  of  British  Columbia 
into  the  American  Union  ;  but  he  always  insisted 
that  it  "  should  be  made  by  peaceful  annexation,  by 
the  voluntary  act  of  England,  and  with  the  cordial 
assent  of  the  colonists."  Nor,  in  April,  1869,  when 
he  delivered  his  National  Claims,  or  Consequential 
Damages,  speech  in  the  Senate,  did  this  result 
seem  to  him  remote.  Five  months  later,  still  borne 
forward  on  the  crest  of  a  flooding  tide, — little  pres 
cient  of  the  immediate  future, — he  quoted  before 
the  Massachusetts  State  Republican  convention 
Cobden's  words  of  prophecy,  and  triumphantly  ex 
claimed — "The  end  is  certain;  nor  shall  we  wait 
long  for  its  mighty  fulfilment.  In  the  procession  of 
^events  it  is  now  at  hand,  and  he  is  blind  who  does 
not  discern  it."  * 

Read  with  this  clue  in  mind  Mr.  Sumner's  utter 
ances  between  1869  and  1871, — including  his  speech 
on  the  Johnson-Clarendon  treaty,  his  address  before 
the  Massachusetts  Republican  convention  in  the 
following  September,  and  his  memorandum  to  Sec 
retary  Fish  of  sixteen  months  later, — become  intelli 
gible,  and  are  consecutive.  The  claims  against  Great 
Britain,  mounting  into  the  thousands  of  millions, 
were  formulated  and  advanced  by  him  as  no  vulgar 
pot-house  score,  to  be  itemized,  and  added  up  in  the 
form  of  a  bill,  and  so  presented  for  payment.  On 
the  contrary,  they  were  merely  one  item  in  the 
statement  of  a  "  massive  grievance,"  become  matter 
of  gravest  international  debate.  The  settlement 
was  to  be  commensurate.  Comprehensive,  gran 
diose  even,  it  was  to  include  a  hemispheric  flag- 

*  Works,  vol.  xiii,  p.  129. 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    105 

withdrawal,  as  well  as  a  revision  of  the  rules  of  in 
ternational  law.  The  adjustment  of  mere  money 
claims  was  a  matter  of  altogether  minor  considera 
tion  ;  indeed,  such  might  well  in  the  end  become 
makeweights, — mere  pawns  in  the  mighty  game. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  unexpected  was 
sure  to  occur  in  the  practical  unfolding  of  this  pict 
uresque  programme.  Indeed,  a  very  forcible  sug 
gestion  of  the  practical  danger  involved  in  it,  just 
so  long  as  the  average  man  is  what  he  is,  was 
brought  home  to  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts 
when  he  resumed  his  seat  in  executive  session 
after  completing  his  speech  on  the  Johnson-Claren 
don  treaty, — the  carefully  prepared  opening  of  the 
great  world  debate.  Mr.  Zachary  Chandler,  of 
Michigan,  subsequently  took  the  floor.  He  was  a 
Senator  much  more  closely  than  Mr.  Sumner  rep 
resentative  of  the  average  American  public  man. 
And  Mr.  Chandler  proceeded  unconsciously  to 
furnish  an  illustration  of  the  practical  outcome  of 
Mr.  Sumner's  scheme  as  he,  the  average  Ameri 
can,  understood  it.  He  entirely  concurred  in  Mr. 
Surnner's  presentation  of  national  injuries,  conse 
quential  damages,  and  a  sense  of  "  massive  griev 
ance."  "  If  Great  Britain,"  he  then  went  on  to  say, 
"  should  meet  us  in  a  friendly  spirit,  acknowledge 
her  wrong,  and  cede  all  her  interests  in  the  Can- 
adas  in  settlement  of  these  claims,  we  will  have 
perpetual  peace  with  her ;  but,  if  she  does  not,  we 
must  conquer  peace.  We  cannot  afford  to  have  an 
enemy's  base  so  near  us.  It  is  a  national  necessity 
that  we  should  have  the  British  possessions.  He 
hoped  such  a  negotiation  would  be  opened,  and 
that  it  would  be  a  peaceful  one;  but,  if  it  should  not 


106    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of   Washington  : 

be,  and  England  insists  on  war,  then  let  the  war  be 
'  short,  sharp,  and  decisive.'  "  *  The  report  of 
these  utterances  was  at  once  transmitted  by  the 
British  minister  to  his  government ;  and,  taken  in 
connection  with  Mr.  Sumner's  arraignment  and 
his  presentation  of  consequential  damages,  fur 
nished  those  composing  that  government,  as  well 
as  Professor  Gold  win  Smith,  with  much  food  for 
thought. 

The  policy  proper  to  be  pursued  in  the  years  fol 
lowing  1869  rapidly  assumed  shape  in  Mr.  Sum 
ner's  mind.  He  worked  it  out  in  every  detail  As, 
shortly  after,  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe, 
— "  I  look  to  annexation  at  the  North.  I  wish  to 
have  that  whole  zone  from  Newfoundland  to  Van 
couver."  It  was  with  this  result  distinctly  present 
to  him,  and  as  a  first  step  thereto,  that  he  secured 
the  English  mission  for  Mr.  Motley.  Through  Mot 
ley  he  thought  to  work.  He,  chairman  of  the 
United  States  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Re 
lations,  was  to  mould  and  shape  the  future  of  a 
hemisphere, — President,  Secretary  of  State,  and 
Her  Majesty's  ministers  being  as  clay  in  his  potter 
hands,  with  Motley  for  the  deftly  turning  wheel. 
Concerning  this  project  he  seems  during  the  sum 
mer  of  1869  to  have  been  in  almost  daily  correspond 
ence  with  his  friend  near  the  Court  of  St.  James, 
and  in  frequent  conference  with  Secretary  Fish  at 
Washington.  On  June  nth,  he  wrote  to  the  former 
that  the  Secretary  had  the  day  before  sounded  the 
British  minister  on  the  subject  of  Canada,  the  Amer 
ican  claims  on  Great  Britain  being  too  large  to  ad 
mit  of  a  money  settlement.  Sir  Edward  Thornton, 

*  See  report  of  debate  in  New  York  Tribune,  April  27,  1869. 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   107 

he  went  on,  had  replied  that  England  had  no  wish 
to  keep  Canada,  but  could  not  part  with  it  without 
the  consent  of  the  population.  And  now  the  Sec 
retary  wanted  Mr.  Sumner  to  state  the  amount  of 
claims  ;  to  which  he  had  replied  that  he  did  not  re 
gard  it  as  the  proper  time  for  so  doing.  This  let 
ter,  it  so  chanced,  was  dated  the  very  day  after  Mr. 
Motley's  first  unfortunate  interview  with  the  British 
Foreign  Secretary  ;  and  that  diplomatic  jeremiad 
might  not  inaptly  have  concluded  with  a  premoni 
tory  hint  of  what  his  mentor  and  guide  was  on  the 
morrow  to  write.  Then,  only  four  days  later, — on 
the  1 5th  of  June, — Mr.  Sumner  again  advises  his 
correspondent  of  a  dinner-table  talk  with  men  in 
high  official  circles,  and  significantly  adds — "All 
think  your  position  is  as  historic  as  any  described 
by  your  pen.  England  must  listen,  and  at  last  yield. 
I  do  not  despair  seeing  the  debate  end — (i)  In  the 
withdrawal  of  England  from  this  hemisphere  ;  (2) 
In  remodeling  maritime  international  law.  Such  a 
consummation  would  place  our  republic  at  the  head 
of  the  civilized  world."  And,  five  days  afterwards, 
he  writes  in  the  same  spirit,  referring  apparently  to 
the  Secretary  of  State, — "  With  more  experience  at 
Washington,  our  front  would  have  been  more  per 
fect."  *  The  ''debate"  referred  to  was,  of  course, 
that  "  international  debate,  the  greatest  of  our  his 
tory,  and,  before  it  is  finished,  in  all  probability  the 
greatest  of  all  history."  Thus,  in  June,  1869,  the 
chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Af 
fairs  was  sending  what  were  in  effect  unofficial  in 
structions  to  afacile  national  representative,  couched, 
be  it  noticed,  in  the  very  words  used  by  the  writer 

*Pierce's  Sumner,  vol.  iv,  pp.  409-12. 


IOS    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

eighteen    months  later  in    the   memorandum  just 
quoted. 

In  one  of  these  letters  it  will  be  observed  Mr. 
Sumner  told  Motley  that  Secretary  Fish  had  that 
day  sounded  the  British  minister  as  to  a  possible 
cession  of  Canada  in  liquidation  of  our  national 
claims,  and  appeasement  of  our  sense  of  "  massive 
grievance."  The  statement  was  correct ;  and  not 
only  at  this  juncture  but  repeatedly  was  a  compre 
hensive  settlement  on  this  basis  urged  on  the  British 
government.  Both  President  and  Secretary  were 
thus  of  one  mind  with  Mr.  Sumner.  In  November, 
1869,  for  instance,  four  months  after  Sir  John  Rose's 
first  visit  to  Washington,  and  at  the  very  time  he 
was  writing  to  Mr.  Fish  about  Mr.  Motley's  atti 
tude  in  London,  an  entire  cabinet  meeting  was  oc 
cupied  in  a  discussion  of  the  Alabama  claims.  The 
President  then  suggested  the  possibility  of  Great 
Britain  quitting  Canada  ;  and  he  intimated  his  belief 
that,  in  such  case,  we  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
payment  for  the  losses  actually  sustained  through 
the  Confederate  commerce-destroyers,  combined 
with  a  settlement  satisfactory  to  us  of  the  principles 
of  maritime  neutrality  law.  A  few  days  later  he  ex 
pressed  his  unwillingness  at  that  time  to  adjust  the 
claims  ;  he  wished  them  kept  open  until  Great  Brit 
ain  was  ready  to  give  up  Canada.  When  certain 
members  of  the  cabinet  thereupon  assured  him  that 
Great  Britain  looked  upon  Canada  as  a  source  of 
weakness,  quoting  Lord  Carlisle  and  Sir  Edward 
Thornton,  the  President  at  once  replied — "  If  that 
be  so,  I  would  be  willing  to  settle  at  once."  During 
the  following  weeks, — December,  1869,  and  Janu- 

*  Pierce's  Sumner ',  vol.  iv,  p.  409. 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    109 

ary,  1870, — the  subject  was  frequently  discussed  be 
tween  Secretary  Fish  and  the  British  minister.  The 
former  urged  on  the  latter  the  entire  withdrawal  of 
Great  Britain  from  Canada,  and  an  immediate  set 
tlement  of  all  claims  on  that  basis.  To  this  Sir  Ed 
ward  Thornton  replied, — "  Oh,  you  know  that  we 
cannot  do.  The  Canadians  find  fault  with  me  for 
saying  so  openly  as  I  do  that  we  are  ready  to  let 
them  go  whenever  they  shall  wish  ;  but  they  do 
not  desire  it."  In  its  issue  of  December  i8th,  1869, 
while  these  conversations,  taking  place  in  Wash 
ington,  were  duly  reported  in  Downing  St.,  the 
Times,  probably  inspired,  expressed  itself  as  fol 
lows  : — "  Suppose  the  colonists  met  together,  and, 
after  deliberating,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
were  along  way  off  from  the  United  Kingdom,  and 
that  every  national  motive  of  contiguity,  similarity 
of  interest,  and  facility  of  administration  induced 
them  to  think  it  more  convenient  to  slip  into  the 
Union  than  into  the  Dominion, — should  we  oppose 
their  determination  ?  We  all  know  that  we  should 
not  attempt  to  withstand  it,  if  it  were  clearly  and 
intelligibly  pronounced.  *  *  Instead  of  the 

Colonies  being  the  dependencies  of  the  Mother 
Country,  the  Mother  Country  has  become  the  De 
pendency  of  the  Colonies.  We  are  tied  while  they 
are  loose.  We  are  subject  to  a  danger  while  they 
are  free."  And  a  few  months  later,  when  the  Do 
minion  undertook  to  find  fault  with  some  of  the 
provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  the  same 
organ  of  English  opinion  thus  frankly  delivered  it 
self: — «  From  this  day  forth  look  after  your  own 
business  yourselves  ;  you  are  big  enough,  you  are 
strong  enough,  you  are  intelligent  enough,  and,  if 


no    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

there  were  any  deficiency  in  any  of  these  points,  it 
would  be  supplied  by  the  education  of  self-reliance. 
We  are  both  now  in  a  false  position,  and  the  time 
has  arrived  when  we  should  be  relieved  from  it. 
Take  up  your  freedom  ;  your  days  of  apprentice 
ship  are  over."  In  view  of  such  utterance  as  these 
from  the  leading"  organs  of  the  mother  country,  Mr. 
Sumner  certainly  had  grounds  for  assuming  that  a 
not  unwilling  hemispheric  flag-withdrawal  by  Great 
Britain  was  more  than  probable  in  the  early  future. 

Returning  to  what  took  place  in  Washington  in 
March,  1870,  on  the  eve  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
war,  Secretary  Fish  had  another  long  conversation 
with  Sir  Edward  Thornton  which  showed  forcibly 
how  conscious  those  composing  the  English  minis 
try  were  of  the  falseness  of  Great  Britain's  position, 
and  of  the  imminence  of  danger.  The  Secretary 
again  urged  on  the  Minister  that  her  American 
provinces  were  to  Great  Britain  a  menace  of 
danger ;  and  that  a  cause  of  irritation,  and  of 
possible  complication,  would,  especially  in  those 
times  of  Fenianism,  be  removed,  should  they  be 
made  independent.  To  this  Mr.  Thornton  replied 
— "  It  is  impossible  for  Great  Britain  to  inaugurate 
a  separation.  They  are  willing,  and  even  desirous, 
to  have  one.  Europe  may  at  any  moment  be  con 
vulsed ;  and,  if  England  became  involved,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  prevent  retaliation,  and  the  ocean 
would  swarm  with  Alabamas.  England  would  then 
be  compelled  to  declare  war."  The  Secretary  con 
soled  him  by  agreeing  that  commerce-destroyers 
would  then  be  fitted  out  in  spite  of  all  the  govern 
ment  might,  or  could,  attempt  to  prevent  them. 

Up    to    this    point  the  chairman  of  the    Senate 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   1 1 1 

Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  the  President,  the 
Secretary  of  State  and  the  members  of  the  Cabi 
net  generally  had  gone  on  in  happy  concurrence. 
They  had  the  same  end  in  view.  But  now  the 
cleavage  between  President  and  Senator  rapidly 
widened.  A  week  only  after  the  conversation  with 
Sir  Edward  Thornton  last  referred  to,  Gen.  Grant 
cautioned  Mr.  Fish  against  communicating  to  Mr. 
Sumner  any  confidential  or  important  information 
received  at  the  State  Department.  He  had  now 
got  to  considering  the  Massachusetts  Senator  un 
fair  and  inaccurate  ;  and  from  this  time  the  chair 
man  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs 

o 

ceased  to  be  a  direct  factor  in  the  negotiation  with 
Great  Britain. 

Thus  far,  in  pursuance  of  the  policy  dimly  out 
lined  in  the  executive  session  debate  on  the  John 
son-Clarendon  convention,  the  two  questions  of  a 
settlement  of  claims  and  Canadian  independence 
had  been  kept  closely  associated.  They  were  now 
to  be  separated.  Yet  the  change  was  gradual ;  for 
Mr.  Sumner's  policy  had  a  strong  hold  on  the  minds 
of  both  President  and  Secretary.  Even  as  late  as 
September,  1870,  only  five  months  before  the 
Treaty  of  Washington  was  negotiated,  Secretary 
Fish  and  Sir  Edward  Thornton  had  another  con 
versation  on  the  subject  of  Canadian  independence. 
It  originated  in  one  of  the  endless  squabbles  over 
the  Fisheries.  The  Secretary  intimated  his  belief 
that  the  solution  of  that  question  would  be  found  in 
a  separation  of  the  Dominion  from  the  Mother 
Country.  Thereupon  Mr.  Thornton  repeated  what 
he  had,  he  declared,  often  said  before, — that  Great 
Britain  was  willing,  and  even  anxious,  to  have  the 


112    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

Colonies  become  independent ;  but  could  do  noth 
ing  to  force  independence  on  them.  He  then  added 
— "  It  is  impossible  to  connect  the  question  of  Can 
adian  independence  with  the  Alabama  claims ;  not 
even  to  the  extent  of  providing  for  the  reference  of 
the  question  of  independence  to  a  popular  vote  of 
the  people  of  the  Dominion.  Independence,"  he 
added,  "  means  annexation.  They  are  one  and  the 
same  thing."  This  conversation,  it  will  be  ob 
served,  took  place  on  the  very  day  the  invest 
ment  of  Paris  by  the  victorious  German  army  was 
pronounced  complete.  In  the  existing  European 
situation  everything  was  possible,  anything  might 
be  anticipated. 

Though  his  resignation  had  been  requested,  Mr. 
Motley  still  remained  in  London.  His  early  removal 
was  contemplated  byTthe  President,  and  the  ques 
tion  of  who  should  be  sent  out  to  replace  him  was 
under  consideration.  The  place  was  offered  to  O.  P. 
Morton,  then  a  Senator  from  Indiana.  Wholly  the 
President's,  the  selection  was  the  reverse  of  happy. 
Governor  Morton  was  inclined  to  accept  ;  but  he 
desired  first  to  know  whether  he  would,  as  Min 
ister,  have  the  Alabama  claims  settlement  entrusted 
to  him.  The  President  then  talked  the  matter  over 
with  Secretary  Fish,  and  what  he  said  showed 
clearly  the  hold  which  Sumner's  views  had  on  him. 
He  proposed  that  the  new  Minister  should  attempt 
a  negotiation  based  on  the  following  concessions  by 
Great  Britain  :  (i)  the  payment  of  actual  losses  in 
curred  through  the  depredations  of  British  Con 
federate  commerce-destroyers  ;  (2)  a  satisfactory 
revision  of  the  principles  of  international  law  as 
between  the  two  governments;  and  (3)  the  sub- 


American   Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    113 

mission  to  the  voters  of  the  Dominion  of  the  ques 
tion  of  independence.  In  commenting  immediately 
afterwards  on  this  conversation,  Mr.  Fish  wrote— 
"  The  President  evidently  expects  these  Provinces 
to  be  annexed  to  the  United  States  during  his  ad 
ministration.  I  hope  that  it  may  be  so.  That  such 
is  their  eventual  destiny,  I  do  not  doubt ;  but 
whether  so  soon  as  the  President  expects  may  be  a 
question."  Owing  to  the  result  of  an  election  in 
Indiana  held  shortly  after  this  time,  it  was  deemed 
inexpedient  for  Gov.  Morton  to  vacate  his  seat  in 
the  Senate.  He  consequently  declined  further  to 
consider  a  diplomatic  appointment.  Though  in  no 
way  germane  to  the  subject  of  this  paper,  it  is  inter 
esting  to  know  that  it  was  to  fill  the  vacancy  thus 
existing  that  Gen.  Butler  shortly  after  brought  for 
ward  the  name  of  Wendell  Phillips.  The  President, 
Mr.  Fish  noted,  "  very  evidently  will  not  consider 
him  within  the  range  of  possibilities  of  appointment." 
The  pressure  for  some  settlement  now  brought 
to  bear  on  the  British  government  was  day  by 
day  becoming  greater.  Late  in  November  the 
Russian  minister  took  occasion  to  suggest  to  Sec 
retary  Fish  that  the  present  time, — that  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  war, — was  most  opportune  to  press 
on  Great  Britain  an  immediate  settlement  of  the 
Alabama  claims.  Two  weeks  later  the  message  of 
the  President  was  sent  to  Congress,  with  the  sig 
nificant  paragraph  already  quoted.  In  his  next 
talk  with  the  British  minister,  Secretary  Fish  al 
luded  to  the  suggestion  made  to  him  by  the  Rus 
sian  minister,  and  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  in  return, 
frankly  asked  him  what  the  United  States  wanted. 
And  now  at  last  the  negotiation  took  a  new  and 


114    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

final  turn.  The  Secretary,  dropping  Canada  from 
the  discussion,  asked  merely  an  expression  of  regret 
on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  an  acceptable  declaration 
of  principles  of  international  law,  and  payment  of 
claims.  This  conversation  took  place  on  the  2Oth  of 
November;  nineteen  days  later,  on  the  9th  of  Decem 
ber,  at  a  cabinet  meeting  held  that  day,  Secretary 
Fish  read  in  confidence  a  private  letter  to  him  from 
Sir  John  Rose  "intimating  that  the  British  cabinet  is 
disposed  to  enter  on  negotiations."  It  would  thus  ap 
pear  that  the  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  renewed  nego 
tiation  had  been  the  purpose  of  the  United  States  to 
combine  in  some  way  a  settlement  of  money  claims 
private  and  national,  with  a  movement  looking  to 
the  withdrawal  of  the  British  flag,  in  whole  or  part, 
from  the  North  American  continent.  The  moment 
this  purpose  was  withdrawn,  the  British  cabinet 
lost  no  time  in  signifying  its  readiness  to  negotiate. 
None  the  less,  the  whole  scheme  of  Mr.  Sumner, 
underlying  his  famous  speech  of  May  17,  1869,  and 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Motley  to  the  English  mis 
sion,  was  thereby  and  thenceforth  definitely  aban 
doned.  In  his  memorandum,  therefore,  he  de 
manded  nothing  new;  he  merely,  stating  the  case 
in  its  widest  form,  insisted  upon  adherence  to  a 
familiar  policy  long  before  formulated. 

VI 

The  narrative  now  returns  to  the  point  when  Mr. 
Sumner's  memorandum  of  January  i;th  reached 
Mr.  Fish.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  Secre 
tary's  sensations  when  he  finished  the  perusal  of 
that  remarkable  paper,  one  thing  must  at  once  have 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.    115 

been  apparent  to  him ;  by  it  the  situation  was  sim 
plified.  The  natural, — indeed  the  only  inference 
to  be  drawn  from  the  memorandum, — was  that  the 
chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Af 
fairs  intended  to  put  an  immediate  stop  to  the  pro 
posed  negotiation,  if  in  his  power  so  to  do.  The 
considerations  influencing  him  were  obvious.  The 
course  of  procedure  now  suggested  was  wholly  at 
variance  with  the  policy  outlined  by  him.  In  June, 
1869,  he  had  written  to  Mr.  Motley: — "I  should 
make  no  claim  or  demand  for  the  present"  ;  and  to 
Caleb  Cushirg  a  month  later — "  Our  case,  in  length 
and  breadth,  with  all  details,  should  be  stated  to 
England  without  any  demand  of  any  kind."  And 
now,  in  January,  1871,  he  did  not  regard  the  con 
ditions  of  a  successful  and  satisfactory  settlement 
with  Great  Britain,  on  the  basis  he  had  in  view,  as 
being  any  more  propitious  than  in  June,  1869. 
Eighteen  months  only  had  elapsed.  The  fruit  was 
not  yet  ripe ; — then  why  shake  the  tree  ?  That 
"  international  debate,  the  greatest  of  our  history, 
and  before  it  is  finished,  in  all  probability  the  great 
est  of  all  history,"  seemed  drawing  to  a  lame  and 
impotent,  because  premature,  conclusion.  His 
memorandum  was,  therefore,  an  attempt  at  a  check 
mate.  By  formulating  demands  which  he  knew 
would  not  be  entertained,  he  hoped  to  bring  the 
proposed  negotiation  to  an  abrupt  close.  The 
country  would  then  await  some  more  convenient 
occasion,  when,  Great  Britain  being  entirely  willing, 
a  mild  compulsion  in  favor  of  independence  could 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  her  American  dependen 
cies.  On  the  other  hand,  the  issue  presented  in 
this  memorandum  was  clear  and  not  to  be  evaded  : 


Ii6    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

—Was  the  Executive  to  shape  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  United  States  ;  or  was  it  to  receive  its  inspiration 
from  the  room  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  ?  Either  that  committee  must  be  brought 
into  line  with  the  State  Department,  or  the  Secre 
tary  of  State  should  accept  his  position  as  a  chair 
man's  clerk. 

A  delicate  question  between  the  executive  and 
legislative  departments  of  the  government,  --a 
question  as  old  as  the  Constitution,  was  thus  in 
volved.  What  Constituted  an  attempt  at  improper 
interference  by  one  department  with  the  functions 
and  organization  of  the  other?  It  is  obvious  that, 
in  a  representative  government  under  the  party  sys 
tem,  where  both  the  legislative  and  the  executive 
departments  are  controlled  by  the  same  party  or 
ganization,  the  legislative  committees  should  be  so 
organized  as  to  act  in  accord  with  the  responsible 
executive.  It  is  a  purely  practical  question.  The 
executive  cannot,  of  course,  directly  interfere  in  the 
organization  of  the  legislative  body  ;  but  it  has  a 
perfect  right  to  demand  of  its  friends  and  sup 
porters  in  the  legislative  bodies  that  those  hav 
ing  charge  through  committees  of  the  business 
of  those  bodies  should  be  in  virtual  harmony  with 
the  administration.  Certainly,  they  should  not  be 
in  avowed  hostility  to  it.  Indeed,  under  any  proper 
construction  of  functions,  those  finding  themselves 
in  virtual  opposition  should  in  such  cases  decline 
committee  appointments  necessarily  placing  them 
in  a  position  where  they  feel  under  compulsion  to 
thwart  and  hamper  the  measures  of  the  party  of 
which  they  nominally  are  members.  Such  should, 
in  parliamentary  parlance,  take  their  places  below 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    117 

the  gangway.  In  the  winter  of  1870-1  Mr.  Sum- 
ner  was  in  that  position.  Chairman  of  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  he  was  notorious 
ly  in  proclaimed  opposition  on  cardinal  features  of 
foreign  policy.  Such  being  the  case,  in  view  of  the 
executive  functions  of  the  Senate,  it  is  at  least  an 
open  question  whether  he  should  not  have  volun 
tarily  declined  longer  to  serve  as  chairman  of  the 
committee  having  foreign  matters  in  its  charge. 
His  serving  was  clearly  an  obstruction  to  the  Ad 
ministration  ;  while  it  would  be  perfectly  possible 
for  him  to  exert  his  influence  in  the  Senate  and 
committee-room  without  being  the  official  head, 
entrusted  as  such  with  the  care  of  measures  on 
the  defeat  of  which  he  was  intent.  The  practice, 
under  our  government,  is  the  other  way.  Sen 
atorial  courtesy  and  seniority,  it  is  well  known, 
prevail ;  and  Secretaries  must  govern  themselves 
accordingly.  Nevertheless,  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Sumner  and  his  chairmanship  in  1870-1  this  prac 
tice  was  carried  to  its  extreme  limit.  Having  been 
active  in  opposition  to  one  measure  of  foreign  policy 
by  which  the  President  set  great  store,  he  declared 
himself  in  advance  opposed  to  another  measure  of 
yet  greater  moment.  A  wholly  impossible  prelimi 
nary  condition  to  the  proposed  measure  must,  he 
declared,  be  insisted  upon, — or,  to  use  his  own 
language,  "  cannot  be  abandoned." 

In  January,  1871,  the  Forty-first  Congress  was 
fast  drawing  to  its  close.  Chosen  at  the  election 
which  made  Grant  President  for  the  first  time,  that 
Congress  was  overwhelmingly  Republican ;  so 
much  so  that,  of  seventy-two  Senators  admitted  to 
seats,  sixty-one  were  supporters  of  the  Administra- 


1 1 8    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington : 

tion.  And  yet,  in  a  body  thus  made  up, — a  body  in 
which  the  opposition  numbered  but  eleven  mem 
bers, — scarcely  one  in  six, — a  treaty  in  behalf  of 
the  approval  of  which  the  President  had  exerted  all 
his  influence,  personal  and  official,  had  failed  to  se 
cure  even  a  majority  vote.  The  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  regardless  of  the 
private  personal  solicitation  of  the  chief  Executive 
wholly  unprecedented  in  character,  had  been  not 
only  unrelenting  but  successful  in  his  opposition. 
President  Grant  was  essentially  a  soldier;  as  such  he 
looked  at  all  things  from  the  military  point  of  view. 
He  consequently  regarded  this  action  on  the  part 
of  a  Senator  at  the  head  of  the  Committee  on  For 
eign  Relations  as,  during  the  War,  he  would  have 
regarded  the  action  of  a  Department  Commander 
who  refused  to  co-operate  in  the  plan  of  general 
campaign  laid  down  from  head-quarters,  and  ex 
erted  himself  to  cause  an  operation  to  fail.  Such 
a  subordinate  should  be  summarily  relieved.  He 
seems  actually  to  have  chafed  under  his  inability 
to  take  this  course  with  the  chairman  of  a  Senate 
committee;  and  so  he  relieved  his  feelings  at  the 
expense  of  the  friend  of  the  chairman,  the  min 
ister  to  England,  who  was  within  his  power.  Him 
he  incontinently  dismissed  ;  exactly  as,  under  any 
similar  circumstances,  he  would  have  dealt  with 
some  general  in  subordinate  command. 

But  Grant,  General  as  well  as  President,  was  not 
satisfied  with  this.  His  instinct  for  discipline,  as  well 
as  his  feelings,  had  been  outraged,  and  he  was  in 
tent  on  the  real  offender, — the  Senator  from  Mas 
sachusetts.  He  had  also  a  quick  eye  for  stategic 
situations,  and  he  seems  at  once  to  have  grasped 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.    1 19 

the  opportunity  now  offered  him  :  and  it  hence  fol 
lowed  that,  when  Secretary  Fish,  with  Mr.  Sum- 
ner's  memorandum  in  his  hand,  went  to  Grant  for 
instructions,  the  President's  views  as  to  the  inde 
pendence  and  annexation  of  Canada  at  once  under 
went  a  change.  As  he  welcomed  an  issue  with  his 
much-disliked  antagonist  upon  which  he  felt  assured 
of  victory,  hemispheric  flag-withdrawals  ceased  to 
interest  him.  A  great  possible  obstruction  in  the 
path  of  the  proposed  negotiation  was  thus  sudden 
ly  removed.  The  General-President  promptly  in 
structed  the  Secretary  to  go  to  Sir  John  Rose,  and 
advise  him  that  the  Administration  was  prepared 
to  accept  the  proposal  for  a  commission  to  settle  all 
questions  between  the  countries.  That  was,  how 
ever,  a  preliminary  move  only.  By  it  the  Adminis 
tration  was  committed  to  action  of  great  import. 
A  crucial  case  was  presented ;  one  on  which  no 
unnecessary  risk  would  be  incurred.  The  next,  and 
really  vital  step  remained  to  be  taken. 

When  the  first  Congress  of  Grant's  earlier  ad 
ministration  met  in  its  second  session  at  the  usual 
date  in  December,  1870,  an  attempt  was  made  fore 
shadowing  what  occurred  four  months  later.  A 
partial  reorganization  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs  was  discussed,  with  a  view  to  the 
introduction  into  that  committee  of  some  element 
less  under  its  chairman's  influence,  and  more  docile 
to  the  Executive.  A  place  on  the  committee  was 
to  be  found  for  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York.  If 
possible,  Mr.  Conkling  was  to  be  substituted  for 
Mr.  Summer  ;  but  if  Mr.  Sumner  was  found  too 
firmly  fixed,  Mr.  Schurz  was  to  be  replaced  as  a 
member  of  the  committee ;  or,  as  a  final  resort, 


I2O    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

Mr.  Patterson,  of  New  Hampshire,  if  Mr.  Schurz 
also  proved  immovable.  The  las*t  change  was  final 
ly  decided  upon  ;  but,  when  the  committee  as  thus 
altered  was  reported  in  caucus,  Sumner  objected. 
Senatorial  courtesy  then  prevailing,  the  scheme  was 
for  the  time  being  abandoned.  Charles  Sumner  was, 
however,  yet  to  learn  that,  in  civil  as  in  military  life, 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  a  very  persistent  man. 

Two  weeks  later  Mr.  Sumner  did  what  he  had 
hitherto  refrained  from  doing.  Up  to  this  time  he 
had  expressed  himself  with  characteristic  freedom, 
denouncing  the  President  in  conversation  and  in 
letter,*  but  he  had  not  opposed  him  in  debate.  He 
now  openly  broke  ground  against  him  in  a  carefully 
prepared  speech  on  the  Dominican  question.  In 
the  position  he  took  he  was  probably  right.  He 
would  certainly  be  deemed  so  in  the  light  of  the 
views  then  generally  taken  of  the  world-mission  of 
the  United  States;  but  that  was  during  the  coun 
try's  earlier  period,  and  before  the  universality  of 
its  mission  was  so  plainly  disclosed  as  it  now  is. 
Whether  correct,  however,  in  his  position  or  not, 
his  manner  and  language  were  characteristic,  and 
unfortunate.  The  question  on  both  sides  had  be 
come  personal ;  '  the  feeling  uncontrollable  :  and, 
throughout  his  career, — early  and  late, — Mr.  Sum 
ner  did  not  appreciate  the  significance  of  words. 
He  failed  to  appreciate  them  in  the  speech  now 
made,  entitled  by  him  "  Naboth's  Vineyard,"  where 
in  he  accused  the  President  of  seeking  surrepti 
tiously  to  commit  the  country  to  a  "  dance  of  blood." 
On  the  Qth  of  January,  less  than  three  weeks  after 
this  outbreak,  the  papers  relating  to  the  recall  of 

*Pierce's  Sumner,  vol.  iv,  pp.  448,  454. 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.    121 

Mr.  Motley  were,  by  order  of  the  President,  sent 
to  the  Senate.  This  was  on  a  Monday  ;  and  it  was 
on  the  following  Sunday  evening  that  Mr.  Fish 
called  on  Mr.  Sumner  by  arrangement,  with  the  Sir 
John  Rose  memorandum.  The  climax  was  then  at 
hand.  Among  the  papers  relating  to  the  removal 
of  Mr.  Motley  was  one  in  which  the  Secretary  had 
referred  to  some  unnamed  party  as  being  "  bitterly, 
personally  and  vindictively  hostile"  to  the  Presi 
dent  ;  while  in  another  passage  he  had  spoken  of 
the  President  as  a  man  than  whom  none  ''would 
look  with  more  scorn  and  contempt  upon  one  who 
uses  the  words  and  the  assurances  of  friendship  to 
cover  a  secret  and  determined  purpose  of  hostility." 

The  allusion  was  unmistakably  to  Sumner.  It 
was  so  accepted  by  him.  The  Motley  papers  were 
laid  before  the  Senate  on  the  very  Monday  upon 
which  Sir  John  Rose  reached  Washington.  The 
succeeding  Tuesday,  the  eighth  day  after  the  trans 
mission  of  those  papers,  the  memorandum  of  Mr. 
Sumner  of  January  I7th  reached  the  Secretary. 
The  break  between  the  two  officials  was  complete ; 
they  were  no  longer  on  speaking  terms. 

January  was  now  more  than  half  over,  and,  in  six 
weeks'  time,  the  Forty-first  Congress  was  to  pass 
out  of  existence.  When,  on  the  4th  of  March,  the 
new  Congress  came  into  being,  the  committees  of 
the  Senate  would  have  to  be  reappointed,  and,  of 
necessity,  largely  remodelled,  nineteen  newly  elected 
riiembers  of  the  body  replacing  a  similar  number 
whose  terms  had  expired.  Mr.  Sumner's  deposition 
from  the  chairmanship  he  would  then  have  filled 
through  five  successive  Congresses  had  meanwhile 
become  a  fixed  idea  in  the  presidential  mind ;  and 


122    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  ; 

Secretary  Fish  shaped  his  course  accordingly.  On 
the  24th  of  January  he  again  met  Sir  John  Rose. 
A  week  had  intervened  since  the  receipt  of  Mr. 
Sumner's  memorandum,  and  during  that  week  the 
Secretary  had  been  holding  consultations  with  Mr. 
Sumner's  committee  colleagues  ;  of  course,  abso 
lutely  ignoring  that  gentleman.  While  so  doing  he 
had  carefully  informed  himself  as  to  the  attitude  of 
the  Democratic  minority  in  the  Senate,  now  in 
creased  to  seventeen  in  a  body  numbering  in  all 
seventy-four.  Mr.  Bayard  and  Mr.  Thurman  were 
the  recognized  leaders  of  the  opposition  ;  and,  from 
both,  he  received  assurances  of  support.  Upon  the 
other  side  of  the  chamber,  the  Administration  Sen 
ators  could,  of  course,  be  counted  upon  ;  and  through 
their  leaders,  Messrs.  Conkling  and  Edmunds,  it 
was  well  known  that  they  were  ripe  for  revolt 
against  the  Sumner  committee-regime. 

Though  personally  highly  respected,  Mr.  Sumner 
was  not  a  favorite  among  his  colleagues.  In  many 
respects  a  man  of  engaging  personality ;  kind,  sym 
pathetic  and  considerate,  essentially  refined  and 
easy  of  approach,  Mr.  Sumner  could  not  brook  any 
sustained  opposition.  Recognizing  superiority  in  no 
one,  he  was  restive  in  presence  of  any  assertion  of 
equality.  The  savor  of  incense  was  sweet  in  his 
nostrils  ;  and,  while  he  did  not  exact  deference,  habit 
ual  deference  was  essential  to  his  good-will.  Among 
his  colleagues,  especially  those  not  politically  op 
posed  but  more  or  less  lacking  in  sympathy,  his 
unconsciously  overbearing  habit,  implacable  tem 
per  and  intemperate  expression  necessarily  made 
him  enemies.  The  terms  seem  strong,  and  yet 
they  are  not  so  strong  as  those  used  of  him  at  the 


American  Civil   War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.   123 

time  by  men  of  his  own  age,  and  friends  of  years' 
standing.  One  instance  will  suffice.  "  Sumner," 
wrote  R.  H.  Dana  not  long  before,  "  has  been  act 
ing  like  a  madman  *  *  *  in  the  positions  he 
took,  the  arguments  he  advanced,  and  the  language 
he  used  to  the  twenty  out  of  twenty-five  Republi 
can  Senators  who  differed  from  him.  If  I  could 
hear  that  he  was  out  of  his  head  from  opium  or 
even  New  England  rum,  not  indicating  a  habit,  I 
should  be  relieved.  Mason,  Davis  and  Slidell  were 
never  so  insolent  and  overbearing  as  he  was,  and 
his  arguments,  his  answers  of  questions,  were  boy 
ish  or  crazy,  I  don't  know  which."  Again  in  June, 
1 86 1,  the  same  excellent  authority  describes,  in  the 
familiarity  of  private  correspondence,  the  Senator  as 
coming  from  Washington  "  full  of  denunciation  of 
Mr.  Seward.  *  He  gave  me  some  anxi 

ety,  as  I  listened  to  him,  lest  he  was  in  a  heated 
state  of  brain.  He  cannot  talk  five  minutes  with 
out  bringing  in  Mr.  Seward,  and  always  in  bitter 
terms  of  denunciation.  *  *  *  His  mission  is  to 
expose  and  denounce  Mr.  Seward,  and  into  that 
mission  he  puts  all  his  usual  intellectual  and  moral 
energy."  Two  years  later  Mr.  Dana  was  in  Wash 
ington.  In  the  interim  he,  an  old  personal  as  well 
as  political  friend,  had  ventured  to  question  the  Sen 
ator's  policy.  He  now,  as  was  his  wont,  at  once 
called  on  Mr.  Sumner,  leaving  his  card.  The  call 
was  not  returned,  nor  did  Mr.  Dana  hear  anything 
from  Mr.  Sumner  during  the  succeeding  twenty  days 
while  in  Washington,  or  see  him,  except  once  when, 
by  chance,  they  encountered  each  other  at  a  friend's 
house.  All  this  was  characteristic  of  the  man.  With 
him,  difference  of  opinion  savored  strongly  of  moral 


124    Before  and  After  the  Treaty  of  Washington: 

delinquency.  To  any  question  in  which  he  was  deep 
ly  concerned  there  was  but  one  side.*  As  it  was  his 
mission  to  denounce  Seward  in  1861,  ten  years  later 
it  was  his  mission  to  denounce  Grant;  and  he  ful 
filled  it.  As  he  "  gave  the  cold  shoulder  "  to  Dana 
in  1863,  so  he  gave  it  to  Fish  in  iS/i.f  Conse 
quently,  in  1871,  more  than  half  the  body  of  which 
he  was  in  consecutive  service  the  senior  member 
were  watching  for  a  chance  to  humiliate  him. 

So,  at  his  next  meeting  with  Sir  John  Rose  on 
the  24th  of  January, — a  meeting  which  took  place 
at  the  Secretary's  house,  and  not  at  the  State  De 
partment, — Mr.  Fish  began  by  quietly,  but  in  con 
fidence,  handing  Sir  John  the  Sumner  hemispheric 
flag-withdrawal  memorandum.  Sir  John  read  it; 
and,  having  done  so,  returned  it,  without  comment. 
Mr.  Fish  then  informed  him  that,  after  full  consid 
eration,  the  government  had  determined  to  enter 
on  the  proposed  negotiation  ;  and,  should  Great 
Britain  decide  to  send  out  special  envoys  to  treat 
on  the  basis  agreed  upon,  the  Administration  would 
spare  no  effort  "  to  secure  a  favorable  result,  even 
if  it  involved  a  conflict  with  the  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  in  the  Sen 
ate."  t 

The  die  was  cast.  So  far  as  the  chairman  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  was  con 
cerned,  the  man  of  Donelson,  of  Vicksburg  and  of 
Appomattox  now  had  his  eye  coldly  fixed  upon  him. 
As  to  the  settlement  with  Great  Britain,  it  was  to  be 

*  Eulogy  of  Geo.   William  Curtis,  Boston  Memorial  of  Charles 
Sumner \  p.  148. 

f  Pierce,  vol.  iv,  p.  468  ;  Adams,  A'.  H.  Dana,  vol.  ii,  p.  265. 
J  Moore,  International  Arbitrations,  i,  520. 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    125 

effected  on  business  principles,  and  according  to 
precedent;  "national"  claims  and  hemispheric  flag- 
withdrawals  were  at  this  point  summarily  dismissed 
from  consideration. 

The  purport  of  the  last  interview  between  Mr. 
Fish  and  Sir  John  Rose  was  immediately  cabled  by 
the  latter  to  London  ;  and,  during  the  week  that 
ensued,  the  submarine  wires  were  busy.  The 
Gladstone  ministry,  thoroughly  educated  by  fast- 
passing  continental  events, — France  prostrate  and 
Germany  defiant, — was  now,  heart  and  soul,  intent  on 
extricating  Great  Britain  from  the  position  in  which 
it  had,  ten  years  before,  put  itself  under  a  previous 
administration  of  which  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  a 
prominent,  as  well  as  an  active  and  an  influential, 
member.  Before  the  seven  days  had  expired  an 
agreement  was  reached  ;  and,  on  the  first  of  Feb 
ruary,  Sir  Edward  Thornton  notified  Secretary  Fish 
of  the  readiness  of  his  government  to  send  a  special 
mission  to  Washington  empowered  to  treat  on  all 
questions  at  issue  between  the  two  countries.  The 
papers  were  duly  submitted  to  Congress,  and,  on  the 
9th  of  February,  President  Grant  sent  to  the  Senate 
the  names  of  five  persons,  designated  as  commission 
ers  to  represent  the  United  States  in  the  proposed 
negotiation.  The  nominations  were  promptly  con 
firmed.  The  question  was  now  a  practical  one  :— 
Would  Great  Britain  humble  its  pride  so  far  as  to 
avail  itself  of  the  chance  of  extrication  thus  opened  ? 
—and,  if  it  did  humble  its  pride  to  that  extent,  could 
the  administration  of  President  Grant  so  shape  the 
negotiation  as  to  get  the  United  States  out  of  the 
position  in  which  Mr.  Sumner  had  partially  sue- 
ceeded  in  putting  it  ?  His  more  than  possible  op- 


1 26    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

position  to  any  settlement  at  that  time  had  to  be 
reckoned  with  ;  if  necessary,  overborne. 

For  present  purposes,  it  is  needless  to  enter  into 
the  details  of  the  negotiation  which  ensued.  If 
not  familiar  history,  I  certainly  have  no  new  light 
to  throw  on  it.  Under  the  skilful  business  guidance 
of  Mr.  Fish,  the  settlement  moved  quietly  and  rap 
idly  to  its  foreordained  conclusion.  It  is,  however, 
still  curious  to  study,  between  the  lines  of  the  record, 
the  extent  to  which  the  Sumner  memorandum  influ 
enced  results,  and  how  it  in  the  end  only  just  failed  to 
accomplish  its  author's  purpose.  It  rested  among  Mr. 
Fish's  private  papers,  a  bit  of  diplomatic  dynamite 
the  existence  of  which  was  known  to  few,  and  men 
tioned  by  no  one.  Not  a  single  allusion  is  to  be 
found  to  it  in  the  debates,  the  controversies  or  the 
correspondence  of  the  time.  Yet  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  its  presence  contributed  sensibly  to  that 
strong  presentation  of  national  injuries,  indirect 
claims,  and  consequential  damages  which,  in  the 
following  autumn,  startled  Great  Britain  from  its 
propriety,  and  brought  the  treaty  to  the  verge  of 
rejection.  Had  it  led  to  that  result,  the  possible 
consequences  might  now,  did  space  permit,  be  in 
teresting  to  consider  ;  but  such  a  result,  whether  an 
advantage  or  otherwise  to  the  world-at-large,  would 
have  been  a  singular  tribute  to  the  influence  of 
Charles  Sumner.  In  all  human  probability,  also,  a 
calamity  to  Great  Britain. 

But  to  return  to  the  narrative.  Gen.  Grant  was 
now  handling  a  campaign.  He  did  it  in  character 
istic  fashion.  His  opponent  and  his  objective  were 
to  him  clear,  and  he  shaped  his  plan  of  operations 
accordingly.  So  rapidly  did  events  move,  so  ready 


American  Civil  War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    127 

ripe  for  action  were  all  concerned,  that  the  Joint 
High  Commission,  as  it  was  called,  organized  in 
Washington  on  the  27th  of  February,  exactly  seven 
weeks  from  the  arrival  there  of  Sir  John  Rose. 
On  the  8th  of  the  following  May  the  treaty  was 
signed ;  and,  on  the  loth,  the  President  sent  it  to 
the  Senate.  It  was  at  once  referred  to  the  Com 
mittee  on  Foreign  Relations.  Mr.  Sumner  was, 
however,  no  longer  chairman  of  that  committee.  On 
the  8th  of  March, — two  months  before, — the  nego 
tiators  were  struggling  with  the  vexed  question  of  in 
direct  claims,  Mr.  Sumner's  special  senatorial  thun 
der;  and,  on  the  day  following,  at  a  Senate  Republi 
can  caucus  then  held,  he  was  deposed.  As  the  story 
has  been  told  in  all  possible  detail,  it  is  needless  here 
to  describe  what  then  occurred.  The  step  taken  was 
one  almost  without  precedent,  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  conclude  that  it  had  been  decided  upon 
in  the  private  councils  of  the  White  House  quite  ir 
respective  of  the  fate  of  any  possible  treaty  which 
might  result  from  the  negotiations  then  in  progress. 
However  that  may  be,  its  complete  justification  can 
be  found  in  facts  now  known  in  connection  with 
that  negotiation.  Upon  certain  points  there  is  no 
longer  room  for  controversy.  As  already  pointed 
out,  in  the  conduct  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  coun 
try,  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  For 
eign  Relations  was,  and  is,  of  necessity  a  part  of 
the  Administration.  In  March,  1870,  a  settlement 
with  Great  Britain  had  become  a  cardinal  feature, 
—it  might  be  said  the  cardinal  feature,  in  the  for 
eign  policy  of  the  Administration,  as  represented  by 
its  official  organ,  the  State  Department.  With  the 
head  of  that  Department  the  chairman  of  the  Sen- 


128     Before  and  After  the  Treaty  of  Washington: 

ate  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs  was  no  longer 
upon  speaking  terms  ;  while,  in  private,  his  denun 
ciation  of  him  and  of  the  President  was  loud  and 
limitless.  That  chairman  had,  moreover,  been 
consulted  as  to  the  negotiation  before  it  was  in 
itiated,  and,  in  reply,  had  signified  his  opinion 
that  "  the  withdrawal  of  the  British  flag  from  this 
hemisphere,  including  provinces  and  islands,  cannot 
be  abandoned  as  a  condition,  or  preliminary  of  set 
tlement."  With  the  Senate  fate  of  the  Johnson- 
Clarendon  convention  fresh  in  memory,  this  mem 
orandum  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  Mr. 
Fish  had  privately  communicated  to  the  confiden 
tial  agent  of  the  British  government.  So  doing 
was  on  his  part  right  and  proper.  After  its  expe 
rience  over  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention,  that 
government  of  right  ought  to  be, — indeed,  had  to 
be, — advised  of  this  danger  before  being  invited  to 
enter  upon  a  negotiation  which  might  result  in 
another  mortifying  rebuff.  In  making  this  unoffi 
cial  communication  the  Secretary  had  intimated  to 
the  agent  that,  should  Great  Britain  still  decide  to 
proceed  with  the  negotiations,  the  Administration 
would  spare  no  effort  to  secure  a  favorable  result 
"  even  if  it  involved  a  conflict"  with  Mr.  Sumner. 
To  any  one  who  knew  the  President  and  his 
methods,  mental  and  military,  this  admitted  of  no 
misinterpretation.  Unquestionably,  the  contents  of 
Mr.  Sumner's  memorandum  were  well  known  to 
every  one  of  the  British  plenipotentiaries,  as  also 
was  the  committal  of  the  Administration  in  connec 
tion  therewith.  Under  these  circumstances  the 
course  now  pursued  was  more  than  justifiable  ;  it 
was  necessary,  as  well  as  right.  For  the  Adminis- 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  tJie   Transvaal.    129 

tration,  in  face  of  the  notice  thus  given,  to  have  per 
mitted  the  continuance  of  Mr.  Sumner  in  his  chair 
manship,  if  to  prevent  was  in  its  power,  would  have 
been  worse  than  childish  ;  it  would  have  distinctly 
savored  of  bad  faith:  and  neither  Gen.  Grant  nor  Mr. 
Fish  were  ever  chargeable  with  bad  faith,  any  more 
than  the  record  of  the  former  was  indicative  of  a  prone- 
ness  to  indecisive  or  childish  courses  of  procedure. 
On  the  Qth  of  March,  therefore,  in  accordance 
with  the  understood  wishes  of  the  Executive,  Mr. 
Sumner  was  deposed  by  his  senatorial  colleagues 
from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations.  Still,  when,  on  the  24th  of 
May  the  treaty  was  reported  back  to  the  Senate  by 
the  committee  as  now  organized,  with  a  favorable 
recommendation,  the  question  of  interest  was  as  to 
the  course  Mr.  Sumner  would  pursue.  Would  he 
acquiesce  ?  It  was  well  understood  that  on  all 
matters  of  foreign  policy  the  Senate,  if  only  from 
long  habit,  gave  a  more  than  attentive  ear  to  his 
utterances.  Almost  daily,  after  the  treaty  was  trans 
mitted  to  the  Senate  and  until  it  was  reported  back 
from  committee,  intimations  from  this  person  and 
from  that, — callers  on  Mr.  Sumner  or  guests  at  his 
table, — reached  the  Department  of  State,  indicating 
what  the  deposed  chairman  proposed  to  do,  or  not 
to  do.  One  day  Judge  Hoar,  now  serving  as  one  of 
the  Joint  High  Commissioners,  would  announce  that 
Mr.  Sumner  had  declared  himself  the  evening  be 
fore  in  favor  of  the  treaty,  and  was  preparing  a 
speech  accordingly  ;  on  the  evening  of  the  same 
day  another  gentleman  came  directly  to  Mr.  Fish 
from  Mr.  Sumner's  table  to  say  that  his  host 
had  just  been  criticising  the  treaty,  and  proposed 


130     Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

to  urge  amendments  to  it.  The  British  commis 
sioners  were  especially  solicitous.  They  even  went 
so  far  as  to  ignore  their  instructions  to  leave  Wash 
ington  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  treaty  was 
signed.  The  Administration  wished  them  to  re 
main  there,  as  one  of  the  Englishmen  wrote,  on  the 
ground  that  they  might  be  able  to  influence  "par 
ticular  Senators,  such  as  the  Democrats  and  (still 
more)  Sumner,  over  whom  [the  Administration  has] 
no  party  control."  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  then 
goes  on  to  say  of  Mr.  Sumner — "  We  have  paid 
him  a  great  deal  of  attention  since  he  has  been  de 
posed,  and  I  think  he  is  much  pleased  at  being  still 
recognized  as  a  power."  Sir  Stafford  might  well 
say  that  they  had  paid  him  a  great  deal  of  atten 
tion.  Mr.  Sumner's  egotism  and  love  of  flattery 
were  tolerably  well  understood  ;  and  the  English 
men,  realizing  that  he  was  "very  anxious  to  stand 
well  with  England,"  humored  him  to  the  top  of  his 
bent.  Lord  de  Grey,  for  instance,  presently  to  be 
made  Marquis  of  Ripon,  the  head  of  the  British  side 
of  the  commission,  went  out  of  his  way  to  inform  the 
deposed  chairman  that,  without  his  speech  on  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  convention,  "  the  treaty  could 
not  have  been  made,  and  that  he  [Lord  de  Grey] 
worked  by  it  as  a  chart."  Nor  were  the  American 
commissioners  less  solicitous ;  though  they  went 
about  it  in  a  more  quiet  way.  For,  hardly  was  the 
ink  of  the  signatures  to  the  treaty  dry  before  Judge 
Hoar  called  at  Mr.  Sumner's  door  with  a  copy, 
which  he  commended  to  the  Senator's  favorable 
consideration  "  as  meeting  on  all  substantial  points 
the  objections  he  had  so  well  urged  against  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  convention." 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    131 

That  Mr.  Sumner,  had  he,  on  consideration,  con 
cluded  that  it  was  his  duty  to  oppose  the  confirma 
tion  of  the  treaty,  could,  placed  as  he  now  was,  have 
secured  its  rejection,  is  not  probable.  As  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  it  would  al 
most  unquestionably  have  been  in  his  power  so  to 
do ;  not  directly,  perhaps,  but  through  the  adoption  of 
plausible  amendments.  This  course  Mr.  Fish  ap 
prehended.  On  the  1 8th  of  May,  Mr.  Trumbull, 
then  Senator  from  Illinois,  and  deservedly  influen 
tial,  called  at  the  Department  to  inquire  whether  an 
amendment  would  jeopardize  the  treaty.  In  reply 
he  was  assured  that  any  amendment,  however 
trivial,  would,  in  all  probability,  destroy  the  treaty, 
as  it  would  enable  Great  Britain  either  to  withdraw 
entirely,  or,  in  any  event,  to  propose  counter 
amendments.  In  point  of  fact,  Mr.  Sumner,  while 
advocating  approval,  did  offer  amendments  ;  but, 
no  longer  chairman  of  the  committee,  he  was  shorn 
of  his  strength.  Up  to  the  time  of  voting,  he  was 
enigmatical.  He  would  intimate  a  sense  of  great 
responsibility,  inasmuch  as  he  realized  the  extent  to 
which  the  country  was  looking  to  him  for  guidance  ; 
and  he  would  then  suggest  doubts.  His  mind  was 
not  clear,  &c.,  &c.  On  the  direct  issue  of  approval 
the  solid  phalanx  of  Administration  Senators  would 
unquestionably  have  been  arrayed  against  him  ; 
and,  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the  chamber,  he 
was  far  from  popular.  None  the  less  it  would  have 
been  in  his  power,  playing  on  the  strong  Irish  ele 
ment  and  the  anti-English  feeling  then  very  rife,  to 
have  made  much  trouble.  The  treaty  bears  dis 
tinct  marks  of  having  been  framed  with  all  this  in 
view.  In  its  provisions,  not  only  did  he  find  the 


132    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

ground  in  great  degree  cut  away  from  under  him, 
but  he  could  not  help  realizing  that,  in  view  of  his 
speech  on  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention,  he 
stood  to  a  certain  extent  committed.  It  was  not  open 
for  him  to  take  the  hemispheric  flag-withdrawal  at 
titude.  So  doing  was  impossible.  He  had  not  taken 
it  before  ;  and,  though  his  reasons  for  not  taking  it 
were  obvious,  to  take  it  now  would,  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  inevitably  expose  him  to  ridicule.  He 
was  in  thus  far  fairly  and  plainly  circumvented. 

But,  more  and  most  of  all  Charles  Sumner  was, 
be  it  ever  said,  no  demagogue.  Somewhat  of  a  doc 
trinaire  and  more  of  an  agitator,  he  was  still  in  his 
way  an  enlightened  statesman,  with  aspirations  for 
America  and  mankind  not  less  generous  than  per- 
fervid.  His  egoism  was  apparent ;  nor  has  his 
rhetoric  stood  the  test  of  time.  A  hearty  hater, 
and  unsparing  of  denunciation,  he  hated  and  de 
nounced  on  public  grounds  only  ;  but  his  standards 
were  invariably  high,  and  he  was  ever  actuated  by 
a  strong  sense  of  obligation.  His  course  now  was 
creditable.  In  his  belief  an  unsurpassed  opportu 
nity  had  been  lost.  A  rejection  of  the  proposed  ad 
justment,  manifestly  fair  so  far  as  it  went,  could, 
however,  result  only  in  keeping  alive  a  source  of 
acute  irritation  between  two  great  nations.  That 
involved  a  heavy  responsibility  ;  a  responsibility 
not  in  Mr.  Sumner's  nature  to  assume.  Accord 
ingly,  he  accepted  the  inevitable ;  and  he  accepted 
it  not  ungracefully.  Gen.  Grant  numbered  him, 
with  Buckner,  Pemberton,  Johnston,  Bragg  and  Lee 
among  his  vanquished  opponents.  As  to  Mr.  Fish, 
the  two  were  never  afterwards  reconciled ;  but  the 
Secretary  now  had  his  way. 


American  Civil  War  and   War  in  the   Transvaal.    133 

Into  the  subsequent  difficulties  encountered  by 
Secretary  Fish  in  his  work  of  saving  Great  Britain 
in  spite  of  Great  Britain's  self,  it  is  needless  to  en 
ter.  Suffice  it  to  say  they  can  all  be  traced  back  to 
the  positions  assumed  by  Mr.  Sumner  in  April, 
1869.  As  already  pointed  out,  it  was  obviously 
from  an  over-desire  to  forestall  Mr.  Sumner  that 
Secretary  Fish's  assistant,  Mr.  Bancroft  Davis,  a 
little  later  jeopardized  the  whole  treaty  by  the  ex 
treme  grounds  taken  on  the  subject  of  national 
injuries,  indirect  claims  and  consequential  dam 
ages,  and  the  somewhat  intemperate  way  in  which 
the  same  were  urged.  With  Mr.  Sumner's  historic 
indictment  of  the  Johnson-Clarendon  convention 
fresh  in  memory,  the  full  record  of  grievance  had  to 
be  set  forth,  or  the  American  people  might  resent  a 
tacit  abandonment  of  what  they  had  been  taught  to 
regard  as  their  just  demands.  With  an  eye  to  this 
possibility, — Sumner  always  in  mind, — Mr.  Fish  had 
at  an  early  stage  of  the  negotiations  significantly  inti 
mated  to  his  colleagues  that  "he  supposed  it  was 
pretty  well  agreed  that  there  were  some  claims  which 
would  not  be  allowed  by  the  arbitrators,  but  he 
thought  it  best  to  have  them  passed  upon."  So,  in 
avoiding  the  senatorial  Sylla,  Mr.  Bancroft  Davis 
subsequently  brought  the  ark  of  settlement  squarely 
up  against  the  British  Charybdis.  Six  years  later, 
when  both  Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr.  Motley  were  dead,t 
General  Grant  made  contemptuous  reference  to  the 
"  indirect  damage  humbug,"  as  he  then  phrased  it ; 
and,  as  set  forth  in  the  American  "  case  "  presented  at 

*  Davis,  Mr.  Fish  and  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  p.  77. 
f  In  an  interview  at  Edinburgh,  published  in  the  New  York  Her- 
ald  of  September  25,  1877. 


34    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washingt 


on 


Geneva,  it  was  a  "  humbug," — a  by  no  means  cred 
itable  "humbug."  As  such  it  had  by  some  means 
to  be  got  rid  of;  and  at  Geneva  it  was,  with  general 
acceptance,  so  got  rid  of.  Be  it  always,  however, 
remembered,  the  vulgarized  bill  then  presented  was 
not  the  sublimated  balance-sheet  Charles  Sumner 
had  in  mind.  His  was  no  debit-and-credit  account, 
reduced  to  dollars  and  cents,  and  so  entered  in  an 
itemized  judgment ;  nor  was  this  better  understood 
by  any  one  than  by  President  Grant.  It  is  but  fair 
to  assume  that,  in  the  rapid  passage  of  events  be 
tween  1870  and  1877,  tne  facts  now  disclosed  had 
been  by  him  forgotten. 

In  Wemyss  Reid's  Life  of  William  E.  Forster 
is  a  chapter  devoted  to  this  subject.  I  think  it  may 
not  unfairly  be  said  that  Mr.  Forster  now  saved  the 
treaty.  In  the  first  outburst  of  indignation  over  the 
resurrection  in  the  American  "case"  of  Sumner's  self- 
evolved  equities  and  incalculable  claims,  a  special 
meeting  of  the  British  cabinet  was  summoned,  at 
which  a  portion  of  the  members  were  for  withdrawing 
forthwith  from  the  arbitration.  Though  he  himself, 
unadvisedas  to  the  real  motive  for  so  emphasizingthe 
demand  on  account  of  national  injuries,  held  the  whole 
thing  to  be  a  case  of  "  sharp  practice,"  yet  Mr.  Fors 
ter  counselled  a  moderate  and  prudent  course, — as 
he  put  it,  "  a  cool  head  and  a  cool  temper  needed  "  ; 
adding,  "  I  never  felt  any  matter  so  serious."  He 
then  drew  up  a  special  memorandum  for  the  use  of 
his  colleagues,  looking  to  such  action  as  would  be 
most  likely  to  leave  open  the  way  to  an  understand 
ing.  Upon  this  all  the  ministers,  save  four,  were 
against  him.  Mr.  Forster  next  met  Mr.  Adams, 
then  passing  through  London  on  his  way  home 


American   Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    135 

from  the  preliminary  meeting  of  the  tribunal  of  ar 
bitration  at  Geneva,  he  being  a  member  of  it ;  and 
Mr.  Adams  fairly  told  him  that,  for  Great  Britain,  it 
was  a  case  of  now  or  never.  If,  Mr;  Adams  said, 
Great  Britain  insisted  on  the  absolute  exclusion  of 
the  indirect  claims,  America  must  withdraw ;  and, 
if  it  did,  "the  arbitration  was  at  an  end,  and  Amer 
ica  would  never  make  another  treaty." 

During  those  anxious  weeks  the  British  cabinet 
was  the  scene  of  more  than  one  heated  discussion, 
and  so  severe  was  the  tension  that  the  very  exist 
ence  of  the  Ministry  was  threatened.  On  the 
afternoon  of  April  24th,  Forster  intimated  to  Gen 
eral  Schenck,  the  American  Minister,  that,  unless 
something  was  done,  he  and  the  Marquis  of  Ripon 
"  could  not  keep  the  treaty  alive."  Mr.  Adams 
was  now  once  more  in  London  on  his  way  to  Ge 
neva,  and  Mr.  Forster  again  saw  him,  receiving  the 
assurance  that  "  Fish  and  the  President  had  the 
Senate  well  in  hand  " ;  yet,  this  notwithstanding, 
when  an  article  supplemental  to  the  treaty,  obviat 
ing  the  cause  of  trouble,  was  agreed  on  and  sub 
mitted  to  the  Senate,  that  body  so  amended  it  before 
ratification  that  the  English  government  professed 
itself  unable  to  concur.  It  seemed  as  if  the  last 
chance  of  a  pacific  settlement  was  about  to  vanish. 

On  the  1 5th  of  June  the  Court  of  Arbitration  met 
at  Geneva,  pursuant  to  adjournment.  Everything 
was  in  the  air.  At  Geneva,  however,  the  policy  of 
the  State  Department  was  understood ;  and,  en 
trusted  to  experienced  hands,  it  was,  at  the  proper 
time,  skilfully  forwarded.  A  way  out  of  the  last, 
and  most  serious  of  all  the  dangers  which  imperilled 
the  settlement  was  thus  devised,  and  the  arbitration 


1 36    Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

moved  on  thenceforth  upon  common-sense  business 
lines  to  a  practical  result. 

Times  change,  and  with  them  the  estimate  in 
which  nations  hold  issues.  Recollecting  the  levity, 
at  times  marked  by  more  than  a  trace  of  sarcasm  and 
petulance,  with  which  the  British  Foreign  Secretary 
had  received  our  earliest  reclamations  because  of 
injuries  inflicted  on  our  mercantile  marine  by  British- 
built  commerce-destroyers,  I  cannot  refrain,  before 
closing,  from  a  few  words  descriptive  of  the  very 
different  mood  in  which  the  Ministry  then  in  power 
awaited  tidings  of  the  final  results  reached  at  Gen 
eva.  It  was  the  I5th  of  June,  1872.  The  treaty 
was  in  question.  The  Court  of  Arbitration  met  at 
Geneva  at  noon  ;  in  London,  at  the  same  hour,  a 
meeting  of  the  cabinet  was  in  session, — a  meeting 
almost  unique  in  character.  The  members  waited 
anxiously  for  tidings.  For  two  hours  they  attended 
listlessly  to  routine  Parliamentary  work  ;  and  then 
took  a  recess.  When,  at  3  o'clock,  the  time  for  re 
assembling  came,  no  advices  had  been  received. 
Thereupon,  a  further  adjournment  was  taken  until 
5:30.  Still  no  telegram.  All  subjects  of  conversa 
tion  being  now  exhausted,  the  members  sat  about, 
or  faced  each  other  in  silence.  It  was  a  curious  situa 
tion  for  a  ministry.  Had  England  humiliated  herself 
by  an  expression  of  fruitless  regret  ?  Those  present 
contemplated  the  situation  in  the  true  Parliamentary 
spirit.  "  The  opposition  would  snigger  if  they  saw 
us,"  remarked  one  ;  and  the  speaker  soon  after  sent 
for  a  chess-board,  and  he  and  Mr.  Forster  took 
chairs  out  on  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  cabinet- 
room,  and  there  sat  down  to  a  game,  using  one_of 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    137 

the  chairs  as  a  table.  Three  games  were  played ; 
but  still  no  tidings.  So  the  company  dispersed  for 
dinner.  As  the  Tribunal  adjourned  over  until  Mon 
day,  no  tidings  came  that  night;  the  method  of 
procedure  had,  however,  been  arranged,  and  Mr. 
Fish  communicated  with.  His  assent  to  what  was 
proposed  came  immediately ;  and  meanwhile  Mr. 
Forster  was  bestirring  himself  in  London  to  "urge 
help  to  Adams,"  and  a  "  short,  helpful  telegram  " 
was  forwarded.  "After  all/'  wrote  Mr.  Forster 
that  night,  "  this  treaty,  which  has  as  many  lives  as 
a  cat,  will  live."  The  next  afternoon  this  staunch 
friend  of  America  and  of  peace  scribbled,  from  his 
seat  in  the  ministerial  benches,  this  note  to  his  wife  : 
— "  Hip,  hip,  hip,  hooray  !  the  final  settlement  of 
the  indirect  claims  came  during  questions  to-day, 
and  Gladstone  announced  it  amid  great  cheers  on 
our  side  and  the  disgust  of  the  Tories.  This  is  a 
good  year  now,  whatever  happens."  It  was  the 
1 9th  of  June,  1872, — one  month  over  eleven  years 
since  the  issuance  of  the  famous  proclamation.  A 
heavy  shadow  was  lifted  from  off  the  future  of  the 
British  Empire.  That  it  was  thus  lifted  must  in  all 
historical  truth  be  ascribed  to  Hamilton  Fish. 

In  discussing  the  developments  of  history,  it  is 
almost  never  worth  while  to  waste  time  and  inge 
nuity  in  philosophizing  over  what  might  have  been. 
The  course  of  past  events  was — as  it  was  !  What 
the  course  of  subsequent  events  would,  or  might 
have  been,  had  things  at  some  crucial  juncture  gone 
otherwise  than  as  they  actually  did  go,  no  one  can 
more  than  guess.  Historical  consequences  are  not 
less  strange  than  remote.  For  instance,  the  lessons 


138     Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington: 

of  our  own  War  of  Independence,^  closed  six  score 
years  ago,  are  to-day  manifestly  influencing  the  at 
titude  and  action  of  Great  Britain  throughout  her 
system  of  dependencies.  Should  the  system  ever, 
as  now  proposed,  assume  a  true  federated  form, 
that  result,  it  may  safely  be  asserted,  will  be  largely 
due  to  the  experience  gained  a  century  and  a 
quarter  ago  on  the  North  American  continent,  sup 
plemented  by  that  now  being  gained  in  South 
Africa.  In  view  of  the  enormous  strides  made  by 
science  during  the  last  third  of  a  century  it  cannot 
be  assumed  that,  as  respects  warfare  on  land  or  on 
sea,  what  was  possible  in  1863  would  be  possible 
now.  The  entire  globe  was  not  then  interlaced 
with  electric  wires,  and  it  may  well  be  that  another 
Alabama  is  as  much  out  of  the  range  of  future 
probabilities  as  a  ship  flying  the  black  flag,  with 
its  skull  and  crossed  bones,  was  outside  of  those  of 
1861.  This,  however,  aside,  it  is  instructive,  as 
well  as  interesting,  to  summarize  the  record  which 
has  now  been  recalled,  and  to  consider  the  position 
in  which  Great  Britain  would  to-day  find  itself  but 
for  the  settlement  effected  and  principles  established 
by  means  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington. 

So  far  as  the  international  situation  is  concerned, 
the  analogy  is  perfect.  Every  rule  of  guidance 
applicable  in  our  Civil  war  of  1861-65  is  a  fortiori 
applicable  in  the  South  African  war  of  1899-1902. 
The  contention  of  Great  Britain  from  1861  to  1865 
was  that  every  neutral  nation  is  the  final  judge  of 
its  own  international  obligations ;  and  that,  in  her 
own  case,  no  liability,  moral  or  material,  because  of 
a  violation  of  those  obligations  was  incurred,  no 
matter  how  scandalous  the  evasion  might  subse- 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the  Transvaal.    139 

quently  prove  to  have  been,  unless  the  legal  advisers 
of  the  government  pronounced  the  ascertainable  evi 
dence  of  an  intention  to  violate  the  law  sufficient  to 
sustain  a  criminal  indictment.  In  view  of  the  "  lu 
crative"  character  of  British  ship-building,  it  was 
farther  maintained  that  any  closer  supervision  of 
that  industry,  and  the  exercise  of  "  due  diligence" 
in  restraint  of  the  construction  of  commerce-de 
stroyers,  would  impose  on  neutrals  a  "most  bur 
densome,  and,  indeed,  most  dangerous "  liability. 
Finally,  under  the  official  construction  of  British 
municipal  law, — a  law  pronounced  by  Her  Majesty's 
government  adequate  to  any  emergency, — "  it  was 
unnecessary  for  a  naval  belligerent  to  have  either  a 
port  or  a  sea-shore."  The  South  African  republics, 
for  instance,  "  might  unite  together,  and  become  a 
great  naval  power,"  using  the  ports  of  the  United 
States  as  a  base  for  their  maritime  operations. 
"  Money  only  was  required  for  the  purpose."  Then 
came  the  admission  of  Sir  Edward  Thornton  that, 
in  case  Great  Britain  were  engaged  in  war,  retalia 
tions  in  kind  for  the  Alabama  and  the  Florida 
would  naturally  be  in  order  ;  commerce-destroyers 
would  be  fitted  out  on  the  Pacific  coast  as  well  as 
the  Atlantic,  in  spite  of  all  the  United  States  gov 
ernment  might,  or  could,  do  to  prevent  them  ;  and, 
with  them,  the  high  seas  would  swarm.  War  must 
follow;  and  then  Canada  was  "a  source  of  weak 
ness."  On  land  and  on  sea  Great  Britain  was 
equally  vulnerable. 

From  such  a  slough  of  despond  was  Great  Brit 
ain  extricated  by  the  Treaty  of  Washington.  That 
much  is  plain  ;  all  else  is  conjecture.  But  it  is  still 
curious  to  consider  what  might  well  have  now  re- 


Before  and  After  the   Treaty  of  Washington  : 

suited   had  the    United   States,  between    1869  and 
1871  definitely  for  its  guidance  adopted  the  policy 
contemplated  by  Charles   Sumner  instead   of  that 
devised   by  Hamilton   Fish,  and   had  then  persist 
ently   adhered  to   it.      In  the  hands  and  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Sumner,  the  method  he  proposed 
to   pursue  to  the  end  he  had  in  mind  might  have 
proved  both  effective  and,  in  the  close,  beneficent. 
So  long  as  all  things  are  possible — Who  can  say  ? 
But  Mr.  Sumner  died  in  1874;  and  with  him  must 
have   died   the  policy  he   purposed  to  inaugurate. 
Characteristically  visionary,   he  was  wrong  in  his 
estimate  of  conditions.     He  in  no  wise  foresaw  that 
backward   swing   of  opinion's  pendulum,  from  the 
"  wretched  colonies  "  estimate  of  1 870  to  the  Imperi- 
umet  Libertas  conceptions  of  1900.   Mr.  Fish,  on  the 
other  hand,  less  imaginative,  was  more  nearly  right. 
He  effected  a  practical  settlement ;  and,  in  so  doing, 
he  accomplished  a  large  result.     For  to-day  it  is  ap 
parent  to  all  who  carefully  observe  that,  as  the  direct 
outcome  of  the  American  Civil  War,  the  world  made 
a  long  stride  in  advance.     It  is  a  great  mistake  to 
speak  of  the  Florida,  the  Alabama  and  the  S/ienan- 
doak  as  "privateers."     They  were  not.     No  "  pri 
vateer,"  in  the  proper  acceptation  of  the  word,  ever 
sailed  the  ocean   under   the  Confederate  flag  ;   the 
commerce-destroyers  of  that  conflict,  whether  fitted 
out  on  the   Mersey  and   Clyde,  or  in  home  ports, 
were,  one  and  all,  government  ships-of-war,  owned 
and    regularly    commissioned    by    the    belligerent 
whose  flag  they  flew,  and  commanded  by  its  offi 
cers.     Their  single  mission  was,  none   the  less,  to 
burn,  sink  and  destroy  private  property  on  the  high 
seas.     They   were  engaged   in   no  legitimate, — no 


American  Civil   War  and  War  in  the   Transvaal.    141 

recognized  operation  of  modern  warfare ;  unless  it 
be  legitimate  for  an  invading  army  wholly  to  devas 
tate  a  hostile  country,  leaving  behind  it  a  smoking 
desert  only.  On  the  ocean,  the  archaic  principle  still 
obtains  that  the  immunity  of  private  property  from 
capture  or  destruction  is  confined  to  times  of  peace; 
and,  when  war  intervenes,  mankind  reverts  to  pi 
racy,  as  the  natural  condition  of  maritime  life.  So 
the  commerce-destroyers  were  not  pirates, — com 
mon  enemies  of  mankind ;  but,  as  a  result  of  the 
Treaty  of  Washington,  a  new  and  broad  principle 
will  inevitably,  in  some  now  not  remote  hereafter, 
replace  this  relic  of  barbarism, — the  principle  that 
private  ^property,  not  contraband  of  war,  is  as 
much  entitled  to  immunity  from  destruction  or 
capture  on  water  as  on  land.  It  is,  accordingly, 
not  unsafe  even  now  to  predict  that  the  Florida, 
the  Alabama  and  the  Shenandoah  will  go  down  in 
history,  not  as  pirates,  but  as  the  last  lineal  sur 
vivors  of  the  black- flacked  banditti  of  the  olden 

o  o 

time.  If  this  so  prove,  it  will  then  be  apparent  that 
the  Treaty  of  Washington  supplemented  the  Proc 
lamation  of  Emancipation,  rounding  out  and  com 
pleting  the  work  of  our  Civil  War.  The  verdict  of 
history  on  that  great  conflict  must  then  be  that  the 
blood  and  treasure  so  freely  poured  out  by  us  be 
tween  Sumter  and  Appomattox  were  not  expended 
in  vain  ;  for,  through  it,  and  because  of  it,  the  last 
vestiges  of  piracy  vanished  from  the  ocean,  as  slav 
ery  had  before  disappeared  from  the  land. 


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